Birds of a Feather

My Dad used the expression, “Birds of a feather flock together”.  It was an old English expression that meant that birds with the same kind of feathers congregated with their own species.  I took it to also mean that birds, animals, and humans usually associate within their own circle of family and friends.   The winged creatures and four legged friends with whom I share my yard seem to bear this out. Two days after leaving their nest I saw mother robin with her three speckle-breasted babies enjoying breakfast together in my back yard.  Mother robin appeared to be teaching her youngsters how to peck for worms. Occasionally she even fed them from her own digs. When chickadees, cardinals, wrens, and morning doves visit my bird feeder it is often in the accompaniment of one or more birds of their own kind.   Mother rabbit and her two baby bunnies have spent almost every summer morning feasting together on the clover in my front yard.

It seems natural to bond and live with those like us.  However greater appreciation for others seems to come from expanding beyond our immediate circle of family and friends.  We don’t live in a yard or world with just our own kind.  I recognize that many diverse creatures that usually live in harmony with each other share my modest yard.  Butterflies and birds, squirrels and rabbits, worms and insects, our cat, Tiffany, and my wife and I all live quite happily together (with the exception of some participating in nature’s food chain). I am blessed to live in a diverse neighborhood of people from cultures and ethnic heritages from around the world.  We live peacefully together and greet each other with waves and smiles. My closest neighbors and friends are African-Americans, an appreciable difference from the all white mid-western community in which I grew up.

With our world ever shrinking by faster communication and travel and a growing population connected by inter-dependent economies and common problems isn’t it time to realize that we are all one.  We share the same yard.  In spite of our differences, what are we doing to create harmony, peace, acceptance and appreciation with all who share our planet?

Rich’s Blog

First Flight

A short time ago I had the pleasure of observing a robin in her nest in a tree outside my kitchen window.  Thanks to the mother’s diligent efforts of nest sitting over countless days and nights, three little beaked chirpers eventually pecked their way out of their blue shells.  Within days they were feathered , flapping their wings and pushing aside their siblings while trying to get to an earth worm their mother was serving for dinner. 

It was shortly after lunch when I saw the first speckled breast robin venture out of the nest to the limb.  It sat there fifteen or so feet above the ground frozen in place.   I sensed it wanted to fly, but was terrified to try.

I grabbed my digital camera with a zoom lens to get a closer look at my feathered neighbors, and record their visual images.  As I stood under the tree and snapped their picture, the sound of the shutter and startling flash prompted baby robin to take flight.  I had been the stimulus or threatening intrusion in a little bird’s life that gave it the courage to take its first flight.  What might have been observed by the baby robin as a threat or source of stress, actually became its motivation for flight and freedom, and its’ beginning of a new life.

The young robin also gave me for the first time in my life, the gift of observing a young bird take its first flight.  I felt intimately connected to this wild bird and sensed a new oneness with nature.  I also relearned a lesson from my feathered friend. Not everything we perceive as a threat is real.  It may merely be the stimulus for our growth and better life.  
The question I raise to you my reader friend, is what perceived problem in your life actually became a gift for growth and improvement?

Feel free to share your positive thoughts that might be a gift for others.