Tag Archives: Baby birds

Empty Nest

18 Jul

My Take

DiVoran Lites

I heard a bird call with the most resonant

Song I ever heard and saw it on the tree.

The bird didn’t see me. Then another one

Winged in with a piece of plastic in her beak.

 I knew she was soon to be a mother

 But I didn’t move or speak.

She zoomed into a Carolina wren nest

She had built in an aloe plant.

We discovered one egg one day, and

 The next another—every day, one more

Until there were four, and she couldn’t 

Lay any more. The nest was full.

We checked the birds every day.

Suddenly, one morning a head no bigger

Than the tip of my pointer finger wobbled.

Soon the nest was full of beaks and

Beady eyes, feathers, and wings. It seemed to expand

Like a womb with a growing child. Parent’s cries rang,

“In-coming, in-coming,” as they delivered bugs

And the nest began to peep. I went to look,

Soon even the expanding nest was too small.

I saw a tiny perfect wing. I heard the father calling

“Flying is the thing.” I thought soon we would

See nestlings fledging. But oh, it was not to be. 

The next morning, everyone was gone, 

No beady eyes peeking out at us.

No cleaning the nest of tiny balls

No more serenades

All gone.

Empty Nest. 

Pictures by Pixabay

DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn.  She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”

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Baby Animals in our Back Yard

11 Jul

My Take

DiVoran Lites

 

Mockingbird

 

Three mocking birds are having another fiesta this morning in the elderberry bushes. One is a juvenile and the other two are adults. They eat, sing, and dive in faux aerial combat. Now I see the young one trying to get to the elderberries behind the property-line fence. The tall bushy plants are considered weeds, even though the berries may be used to make wine and for a natural remedy. When people ask if we ever harvest them, we tell them, no, we have plenty to eat, and a lot of remedies, but the birds love and need the berries for food.

A young Mockingbird goes for a clump of berries. Her beak darts and her wings flap. She darts and flaps again and again and misses every time. Finally she gives up. She will have to wait to see how her parents and the woodpeckers eat hanging upside down clinging to the berries.

I love to see baby animals learning from their parents and teaching themselves by trial and error. God made them to become exactly what He designed them to be.

Oh, wait –there’s a juvenile Cardinal. I’ve him before, learning to bathe, and to land of the bird-feeder just right. Because he’s male and in the process of turning into a red-bird, his feathers are a handsome blend of red and brown patches. He flies to the elderberry bush and starts to try for a berry when whoosh, an adult mockingbird skims over his head frightening him away.

I suppose the mockingbirds believe that the elderberry bush is their exclusive territory, and why not, they certainly do enough singing for their supper.

Though I love and appreciate the exuberant Mockingbird praise, I haven’t always done so. When we lived in an upstairs apartment in Inglewood, California I was a stay- at- home mom with our first child. With the windows open, we could hear all the sounds from outside. I have to admit I didn’t notice the birds until they started to whine like our little dog. I’m sure he whined because he needed to get out, but I never had to take my home dog for a walk because he was free to go anywhere in town and to follow us kids around all day. So Smoky suffered a lack of exercise and the Mockingbirds got a new sound, and I suffered frustration day after day and blamed the mockingbirds when I should have looked to myself for a solution.

Now, fifty years later I have learned to walk dogs and to appreciate Mockingbirds who praise the Lord all the day long. We’re especially charmed when a Mockingbird takes up a post at the tip-top of a tree or street lamp and sings so that his enthusiasm lifts him off the perch and gravity brings him back down. Now that’s the joy of the Lord!

 

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