Tag: bird watching

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I Have Succumbed to Bird Watching

Merlin App capture. Enjoy the Red Junglefowl.

I don’t often ruminate about getting old, but when I do, it seems I run to this often-neglected blog to regale you, kind reader, with my meandering thoughts. Thank you for indulging an old lady.

The truth is I don’t think much about aging throughout my day. I get up, stiff and achey, and get moving. By the time I get to the bathroom, I’ve stretched and my knees have stopped creaking. Focused, as I am, on avoiding a stray slipper that might trip me in the low light, I forget about the knees, and focus on the coffee.

There must be coffee.

That leads to a delightful early morning on the back porch with my husband, where morning prayers are often followed by lingering in the increasing heat and humidity. Silly conversations, and distractions from hummingbirds and obnoxious squirrels fuel our desire to stay put, and soon enough, the whole yard is awake and filled with birdsong. Idyllic, if not stereotypical of our season in life.

Naturally, we downloaded the Merlin app so we could identify the birds that keep us company in the mornings. It has been such fun to learn to identify the birds by their songs, even if we can’t see them. The app gives us a picture of the bird, so that has been helpful. Otherwise I couldn’t pick a Carolina Wren out of a line-up. I know bluebirds and cardinals, and that’s about it.

And then there is the rooster that lives somewhere on the other side of the creek. He’s a noisy bastard, but the Merlin app calls him a Red Junglefowl so I have decided to treat his loud interruptions as the call of an exotic jungle bird. This, in the forests of northern Virginia.

Framing is everything. It’s especially useful in the second half of life (at my age that’s rather generous). But it’s true. I don’t dwell too much on thoughts of limitations. I should note that I am highly aware of my age on the pickleball court and don’t lunge for a shot I probably would have returned with ease as a young woman, but short of avoiding an orthopedic emergency, I am still active, still curious, still wanting to pursue adventure. I do it with gusto, just at a slower pace, and I am fine with that.

Right now, the birds have my attention. I probably need to dig out the binoculars and find one of those little field notebooks to start recording the birds I discover. I’m going to embrace this season with joy and gratitude, and perhaps a little bit of sass, like my friend the Red Junglefowl.

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Bird Watching

translated from the Spanish post at Petalos de Maria

My husband and I have recently adopted a new routine after work. He’s at the office before 6 AM and I am usually there at around 7 AM, so we’ve put in a full day’s work when most people have finished lunch.

By 4:00 o’clock, we’re thinking about dinner. When did we become those people having the Early Bird special at Cracker Barrel? Oh my! We’ve become the butt of our children’s jokes, but funnier still is our post-modern realization that we have become the butt of our own jokes.

That’s okay. I’ve realized that the earlier we eat, the sooner we can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and our recent addition of a bird bath and feeder. We’re not really experiencing the empty nest because we’ve adopted a family of beautiful cardinals. Every afternoon we sit on our porch with our coffee and watch the cardinals. We also get some random pigeons, a few thrashers, and even a menacing blue jay.

It’s a lovely way to wind down after a long day at work. It also gives us time to reconnect. What better way to do this than while basking in the late afternoon warmth and being in communion with nature?

We reconnect with each other, but in the sometimes long silences that we sustain from years of intimacy, perhaps we slip into our own minds and hearts for this late afternoon breather. We’re together, but we’re also somehow alone with our own thoughts, and often they turn to wonder and appreciation for the world our God has created.

St. Augustine observed in his Confessions to “Let Thy works praise Thee, that we may love Thee; and let us love Thee, that Thy works may praise Thee….”

It may be centuries later, but I am experiencing the same wonder that St. Augustine had at the magnitude of Creation, and the magnitude of God! The Catechism tells us that through “the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe” (CCC 32). What a wondrous gift to have a glimpse into His Beauty.

It’s a humbling realization, and a fitting way to put our days in perspective, when we can see that we have a place in this world as part of God’s Creation.

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