Handicapped Black Cap Chickadee

A chickadee with a useless leg visits our bird feeder. A couple of days ago, i was happy to see her, all alone, nestled on the deck railing pecking sunflower seeds. A handicapped bird is unlikely to live very long.

She flies funny. She does a lot of flapping as she comes in for a landing. Will she be able to gather enough food to sustain herself?  She uses a lot of extra calories with all that extra flapping.

Since there's nothing i can do, i have to let Nature take its course. I have to accept life as it is, even if it means this particular chickadee's life is short.

According to my Advance Directives, i'm all in favor of letting Nature take its course.But it’s hard to watch how Nature is treating this little bird.

I offer what i can to this sweet little chickadee.

Sunflower Seeds from Bulgaria

The farm and garden store didn't have my usual brand of sunflower hearts for the birds, so i bought 50 pounds of "Valley's Finest" sunflower chips--whatever those may be. When i got home, i read the tag which said "Product of Bulgaria." 

My local birds are eating non-local sunflower seeds. I try ever so hard to locavore my diet, but the wild birds around here are eating Bulgarian sunflower seeds. Bulgaria is the largest exporter of sunflower seeds in the world.

Hmmm. I wonder where the sunflower seeds i use to make granola come from. Maybe i'm not as locavore as i would like to think.

Today, i express my gratitude to unknown farmers in Bulgaria for sending sunflower seeds to my home. My birds couldn't live without them. In fact, we need everyone in the world in order for our own lives to continue.

Contrary to the beliefs of the individualistic culture of our Western society, no one is a self-made man or woman. We all require the support of invisible millions of people. People who are not simply our minions.

The farmers who grew these sunflower seeds suffer and love just as we do. We are all inter-being together.