Birds

A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. ~Chinese Proverb

The ravine is very dense this year with foliage so abundant on the trees that I can see almost nothing of the ravine floor. That means the only animals I see these days are the raccoons, squirrels and rabbits that frequent our backyard. But there are birds.

For some strange reason the birds seem different this year. The breasts of the robins are redder, the cardinals are brighter, the blue jays are bluer, the gold finches are the colour of the sun. Sometimes the brilliance of their colours catch my eye as they fly against the dense green leaves or perch on our deck. I was horrified the other day when a beautiful cardinal hit our bedroom window and fell to the canape below it. But he soon righted himself and flew away. Last summer there were too many dead birds on our property for my comfort. The gold finches kept flying into the windows on all levels and on both sides of the house. Merv tried to scoop them up before I saw them, knowing how upset I would feel. But there were a few that he didn't see before I did. There was also a beautiful woodpecker laying dead on the deck one morning. Seeing it there made me feel sick.

I get that it is a part of nature. The hawks must have their dinners too. I know it happens but I don't want to see it just the same. It is like watching the foxes hunt in the ravine - a fascinating part of nature but I don't want to see that either. And I try not to think about the noticeable decline in the number of feral cats in the neighbourhood that we've seen in the last two years since the fox population boomed after a few seasons of a sparse fox population due to some sort of mange.

I think tomorrow I will fill and hang my new hummingbird feeder. I love hummingbirds.