Bird House

When I moved into my new house several months ago, I discovered that there was a bird’s nest in the eaves outside my front door. I first discovered it when I came home one night, and I was startled by something flying out from underneath the roof as I opened the door. It scared me half to death and my first though was that it was a bat. After this happened a few times I realized that it was in fact the bird which lives in the nest by the front door. Pretty cool -especially given that my last name means bird in Ndebele (my mother tongue). I took it as a sign of welcome to my new home.

Once I knew that I had a neighbor, I didn’t pay much attention to the nest, this in spite of it being in easy view each time I went in and out of my front door. One day about month ago, as I walked outside I glanced up and lo and behold there were several little sets of bird eyes looking at me from the nest. I was so excited.  I went back into the house to grab my camera. As I stepped back outside and raised the camera to snap a picture I almost fell to the ground in shock because the entire nest full of birds took flight in an explosion of feathers and flapping wings. Not only did I not get a picture, I almost had a heart attack into the bargain.

What really disturbed me about that incident is the fact that for a period of at least several weeks, eggs had been laid in that nest, which had subsequently hatched into baby birds. Not only that, those baby birds had grown up enough to be able to fly. All this happened at the entrance to my front door, which I go in and out of everyday, sometimes mulitples times a day. Talk about not paying attention. How could I have missed all of this happening under my nose?

Well this morning, I WAS paying attention to the world around me. It was a beautiful sunny morning and as I walked out of my front door soaking in the gorgeousness of the day, something told me to look up at the birds nest. I did and to my delight, it was full of little feathered beings. I went to get my camera and a step ladder and this time, I was able to snap a shot of these little feathered babies. Their mother was going nuts as I did this. She was circling around me chirping in frantic outrage. I had to move quickly because I was sure she was going to start dive bombing me if I’d stayed there any longer.  A truly beautiful way to start the day!

I’m left wondering what other beautiful gifts like this I miss when I don’t pay attention to what’s going on around me, especially now that I live in the woods where I constantly have visitors. To date I’ve had a bear, deer,  wild turkeys, chipmunks, squirrels and a very friendly gopher. One thing’s for sure I am definitely not alone out here in the woods. I guess I’ll just have to make a conscious effort to look around me more attentively and see what other surprises are right under my nose.