Taming a Nuthatch

My sweetie is training chickadees to eat out of his hand. Today a nuthatch picked sunflower seeds out of my open hand.

I had to brag that i was the first on the block to hand-feed a nuthatch.

What is it about being the first on the block to....? 

It's fun to brag. I've had this experience, and you haven't. I've got this new toy, and you don't. 

Bragging is a way to reify the self. For a moment, and it is only a moment, i feel better than, superior to that other person because.... I'm so special. For a second or two.

And then the nuthatch flies away.

Winterberry Feast

 

The winterberry shrub is becoming a bird and squirrel feast. Today several chickadees were eating the berries. Then a squirrel visited.

That wallflower of a shrub is the center of attention now that December has arrived. What fun to look out the kitchen window and see surprise visitors eating to their heart's content.

What contents our hearts? What contributes to our contentment?

Contentment is wishlessness--not wishing for anything different than what is. When we eat to our heart's content, we are satisfied. One definition of dukkha is dissatisfaction.

Look around you right now. What satisfies you? Our negativity bias wants to focus on dissatisfaction. 

Calm down and look at your environment right now. Temperature? How does sitting feel? Desire for food? In a lot of ways, my heart is already content. Simply notice that.

Injured Cardinal

The day after Thanksgiving, i walked into the woodshed attached to my garage and found a female cardinal. Cardinals are very skittish, so i knew i couldn't approach her directly. I left the woodshed and went around to the side door. When i opened that, she hopped toward the garage and hopped out the open door. She didn't fly. Two of her wing feathers were sticking up.

She hopped across the driveway, toward the compost bins. I didn't see her again after she hopped into a hemlock hedge. I scattered some sunflower seeds around, but The chickadees, however, found the sunflower seeds within minutes.

Ah, well. Nature will take its own course.

I was surprised to see her again yesterday. As i was walking to the compost bin, she hopped out of some very thin cover next to the garage. Hop, hop, hop--across the driveway. She fluttered about 6 inches off the ground for 6 feet. That seemed like progress. I scattered more sunflower seeds on the ground, around the garage, the driveway, the shrubbery.

Just like the cardinal, i too am of the nature to become disabled. Whether i want to or not. Maybe she had a broken wing. Maybe i will break a bone. Maybe her wing was sprained. I too am of the nature to have sprains.

Nature takes its own course.

Bird Branch

A few feet away from the bird feeder on our deck, i have attached a dead branch to an upright post that supports the railing. The dead branch may not be very attractive to humans, but birds love it. They perch on any of its various twigs before, and sometimes after, grabbing a sunflower seed from the feeder.

Eating dinner on the deck, my sweetie and i sometimes proceed in freeze frame. Fork halfway to mouth stops in mid-air in order not to scare away the rose-breasted grosbeak. The situation calls for mindfulness. Sometimes i move, millimeter by millimeter--a form of mindful movement.

But I don't tell the chickadees that i'm having chicken (i.e., bird) for dinner.

The Phoe-Be Song

A phoebe wags its tail as it sits on the back of a lawn chair. This perch gives it a birds-eye view of insects flying around two feet above the yard. It zooms out, seems to snap at thin air, returns to the lawn chair, and swallows. Mosquitoes? Blackflies?

The phoebe never comes to the bird feeders. It builds its nest in an eave of the house (hopefully not near the bedroom window), and sings its raucous "phoe-be" song as if it has laryngitis.

Two chickadees have taken up residence in a bluebird house near the vegetable garden. They flit back and forth to the entrance, apparently feeding babies. Sometimes one of them sits on the wire fence and sings its melodic "phoeeeeee---beeeeeeee" song, dropping half a step between "phoeeee" and "beeeee."


Two birds singing a very similar song--one unpleasant, one very pleasant.
There's no need to wish the unpleasant away nor to desire more of the pleasant. Birds simply sing their songs, and mindfulness simply listens.

Cardinal in Snow

A crimson cardinal perches in a snow-covered apple tree, considering whether he will fly to the bird feeder. Chickadees flit from tree to feeder and back again; they are not shy. But the cardinal is a shelf feeder, and this bird feeder is for perching birds.

Nuthatches--which my partner calls upside-down birds--hop up or down a nearby wild cherry tree. Gravity doesn't seems to concern them.

The cardinal launches himself toward the house and grabs a bite to eat.

I smile. Winter bird-watching feeds my own joy.