After the rain, the birds clustered around the mudpatch turned mini lake in the yard behind us. Sparrows and wrens dove and splashed and shook their feathers while two robins fought a fierce territorial battle at the fence line and the squirrels looked on indifferently. It was a grayish kind of day and more than a little chilly but none of them seemed to mind. As a general rule, all birds look alike to me with a few exceptions - robins, doves, cardinals, bluejays, an occasional woodpecker - and while I'm glad to have them and do try to keep them fed in winter, I can't tell them apart. Dr. Bill, however, is an avid birdwatcher and devoted to hummingbirds. From his dentist's chair, I have a full view of his garden and all the visiting birds and it calms me to watch them. It doesn't calm me anywhere near the way his nitrous oxide does but it helps.
Years ago, living in Back Bay in Boston, pigeons would sit on the outside window sills of the apartments and our cat would sit inside. The birds would coo and she learned to coo right back. We were a single cat household at the time and JB swore that for year the cat thought she was a pigeon. Now, being a multi cat household, all the little ones are fascinated by the birds as well as the squirrels but there's no cooing. They sit like statues with only a tail switch to give them away, hypnotized by the wild things that run free in the outside world and, I hope, grateful not to be among them.
Nature is filled with great wonders and small miracles, cruelty and wisdom. The strong survive and the weak are lost and somehow the planet is kept in balance in the process. God and Mother Earth are watching us all, down to the last sparrow.
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