Fine Feathered Friends

Now that I’ve started lingering even longer at noonday birdwatching it strikes me how the garden population has begun to increase in it’s sheer number. For no particular reason I’ve become somewhat obsessed with counting them all. One red fox squirrel, three gentle doves, four jumpy sparrows, five fiesty redheads, and a tiny new pair with dark faces and yellow beaks. It’s hard to simply observe them without counting them. Maybe it’s the novelty of having really wanted to attract this into my life and then actually, for reals, experiencing it. There’s that saturating sense of joy you feel when something truly does come to pass and the abundance of it is even more than you’d anticipated. And the fact that this doesn’t happen regularly makes for a pause-worthy moment of absorption and reflection. What had been hoped for has become reality.

Of course there are ongoing terms and conditions as with anything else in one’s life that should flourish. The feeders need to be refilled or these fine feathered friends will go elsewhere. The seed must be ordered and kept at the ready. There are steps. Minimal yet ongoing effort will be required to maintain the Shangri-La that’s been achieved.

Also it must be remembered that seasons change and migrations happen. Today’s familiar faces will, in time, be replaced by fresh ones. There will be new acquaintances who stop by and those who will never be seen again—the natural lifecycle whether the fountain is full and the bird seed overfloweth or not.

Time passes and seasons change. Friends, foes, and favorites each have a time to come and to go. Such is life and it is wonderful.

On the one hand I’d like to stop the incessant counting. Really I would. It’s become an automatic behavior like a habit, a tic, a condition. But, maybe instead of a malady, its a symptom of a happy heart. On the other hand It could be called what it really is. Counting my blessings no matter the form they take.