Winter storm birds

The edges of the Chesapeake were frozen this Christmas weekend in Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Bald Eagles stood sentry.

Then the snow began to fall, and the wind began to howl, tossing the full bird feeders around like toys.

The wind whipped the snow into mini tornadoes that went skittering across the plowed cornfields, and there was a weird light to everything.

The birds, normally swarming all over the feeders, hunkered on the ground, finding little niches in the snow.

And popped out between gusts to take the seed from the ground.

  

Things I am grateful for today

The drab little brown female House Sparrow I just saw having a dust bath that could only be described as gleeful. / That there was a local family so generous that a hundred years ago they donated a tract of land near my apartment as a bird refuge. / The fact that robins sound like flutes, and are everywhere. / That there are people who care about baby birds that have fallen out of trees. / Northern Cardinals providing a vivid flash of red in the garden when you least expect it. / That Chickadees and Titmice always seem to go together as a package deal. / And that I just had to stop at an intersection in the middle of downtown to let geese cross the road.

(Drawing of female House Sparrow by Wilhelm von Wright, 1810 - 1887) 

Nesting

In our relationships with other people and the choices we make in how to live our lives, are we looking for a lot of the same things as birds are in the springtime, when they're busily collecting dry grass and twigs and interesting leaves, carefully carrying them back to their nesting places in their beaks? Strip away the layers of our human desires and complex cravings and neuroses, and it seems that like birds, underneath it all often what we are seeking is a simple nest. A comforting, sustaining one that holds us and protects us, anchors us -- but all important, allows us the liberty to fly away, explore on our own, stand on a twig and sing our own tune. A nest that offers us freedom, yet that we feel right down in our bones will be there for us when we need to return.