Whale Moment - The Small Gray Bird
Seen. Known. Loved.
Thank you for joining me. This weekly storytelling space exists to promote looking for God moments in your life. I call these occurrences “whale moments”, which are points in your day where you are in the present moment, awake, aware, and able to receive tangible evidence in a personal way that you are Seen. Known. And, Loved.
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A small bird has been frequenting the space around my home for months. It is gray with some blue on its wings. I first noticed it on my car this past fall as the weather began to turn towards winter. My car sits in the part of our driveway that often receives first sunlight, and what I have noticed is that this bird is on my car as the morning dew, frozen on the ground and on my husband’s vehicle, first begins to thaw, and this bird flits eagerly from drop to drop drinking up the dew as it is freshly melted.
I have never seen this behavior from a bird, nor have I ever seen this particular bird on the feeder, and our feeder is THE LOCAL BIRD HANGOUT, let me tell you. You see, I LOVE BIRDS. I cannot express this enough. I spent my growing up years watching ospreys with my dad as they dove from their nests to the river repetitively picking fish out of the water to feed their young.
I spent my winters in the Inland Northwest watching the annual bird migration. One of the most magical places in the world from October into early December exists in North Idaho, where you can watch the winter migration of Bald Eagles. During this migration, hundreds of birds arrive during the fall spawning season of lake trout, to nest over the lake, and can be seen diving for fish in competitive flight over the lake.
Everywhere I am, I look for birds. My current weekly walking habit includes a few Herons on a lake that I enjoy. I have found four birds that I can repetitively locate on my route, and I have caught these birds in a wonderful array of flight, diving, preening, and routinely hiding in bushes along the shore. This includes a bird I have lovingly named Fred. He’s the old guy of the bunch, and he looks it. If you know Herons, you know that after they dive into water after fish, they pin their feathers out to dry, like feathered porcupines. Well, Fred is Fred because his feathers are permanently pinned, which makes him look cantankerous (my apologies if your name is Fred, and I have now associated you with a cantankerous bird. Please read, or hear, my playfulness in the designation).
So, I’ve painted a picture for you of my bird watching delight. Birds while enjoying the water. Birds while enjoying a walk. Birds out my window at the bird feeder, and hummingbirds at the sugar feeders. I love them. They are an easy way, ability or not, sickness or health, to have something from the natural world to delight in.
I feel this way about rocks shaped like hearts too. But, that is a story for another time.
Back to the small bird. Last week I noticed that this same bird friend that drank dew off of my car was joining me in the back yard as I took the dogs out in the morning. I discovered that as I poured water into the buckets for the dogs to drink, this puffed out, small, gray, baseball looking feathered friend would hop out of the middle of the winter worn bush on the neighbor’s side of the fence, sit for a moment waking up, then, hop up on the fence right next to me. It would then proceed to hop down into the yard, then back up onto the other side of the fence; bold as can be.
After saying “why hello beautiful birdie friend”, this bird would await our departure. I would then notice from the kitchen window that it eagerly perched on the dog water bucket, taking advantage of the room temperature water that I have just filled to the brim for it to enjoy after the dogs finished.
This routine has gone on for days, but this morning the bird was awake before we went out. Instead of joining us on the fence, or in the pen, it squawked at us from a perch at the tippy top of the deciduous tree adjacent to the dog yard. So, I kept up the routine: “why hello up there beautiful birdie friend. I see your friend. Bring her down for a drink when we leave this morning”.
Today, my greeting was answered with bird song in the middle of winter, and a storm impending on our day. The bird called, and its friend answered, and I stood there in awe and gratitude on this January day, awed by the sound of bird song to answer my greeting in the dead of winter. Then, I watched again from the warmth of my kitchen as the bird did indeed bring its friend to drink from the tepid dog water bowl, freshly poured. Friends, I think this is a tradition I will keep.
Again, Thank you for joining me. Until next time.
Kari