That the birds were there first means little to Ani. It is, as far as she is concerned, her garden and she decides who gets to play in it. Apart from the stray babies, those she makes an exception for and will even call the cavalry to their rescue. There is no malice in her vociferous warnings to the feathered fiends who invade her space. In fact, she grins all the time she is chasing them off.
The cat next door, on the other hand, stalks them silently, moving a whisker at a time, closing in for that final, fatal pounce.
Me, on the other hand, I like birds. I love to hear them herald the morning as I wake, the first light washing the bedroom in pale colour. I love to watch them darting around the garden, or soaring in the blue above. They are creatures of grace and beauty who carry music within and rise above the landscape, seeing it with eyes other than my own. In quiet moments imagination lends me their wings and I can rise with them to greet the dawn.
The three of us watch the same sparrow on the fence from completely different viewpoints, with different emotions and imperatives fuelling our actions. I suppose we are simply following the dictates of our own species and nature. Yet these are neither inevitable nor unchangeable. There are many cats that never chase a bird. There are probably few dogs who warn them off quite so joyfully. And as a human being, I could simply ignore them, see them as a source of food or raw materials, or even through the eyes of myth and legend.
The three of us are not so very different after all. It is a personality shaped by instinct and experience that impels our individual reactions to the birds every day. Ani sees them as both invaders to be warned away and playthings with which she can have fun. The cat I don’t know personally… for some reason, Ani refuses that acquaintance… so I cannot say whether it is the thrill of the chase, or a quest for dinner that drives it. For me it is many things. Memories of being taught their names and stories as a child, the simple love of their beauty and the knowledge of the thread of life that binds us, associations that run deeper than the surface, perhaps.
I remember my grandfather explaining a picture in a book to me, when I was very young, where the heart was weighed against the feather of truth. There is more to that than the simple lightness, for Horus, the Divine Child of the Egyptian faith, was depicted as a hawk and truth was a goddess with a feather in her hair. The Egyptians, indeed, had many birds associated with divinity, from the Benu bird, a symbol of rebirth, to the protective vulture goddess Nekhbet. Odin had his ravens, a story brought to life for me on a first visit to the Tower of London, observing their curiosity and intellect in action. Christianity has the Dove and the Pelican. Symbolism, folklore and fairytales are littered with feathers.
Experience shapes us in ways we often cannot see. The innate nature can be overridden by learned behaviours, habits and acquired reactions that may seem obvious to those looking on, but to which we ourselves are blind until something throws them into sharp relief. These habits can be both positive and negative, overcoming inner battles or seeing us lost in a sea of fears. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
But we do not have to be a slave to our reactions, there is always that poised instant when we stand at the crossroads of choice and can break the cycle if we so will it and, to paraphrase the famous quotation, be the change we wish to see in ourselves.
This comes at a moment of synchronicity. I am going to take the last sentence to heart and put it into practice. Thank you. It saves me from stooping to a lower level of behavior than is my want. A friend has betrayed me. Your words will keep me from lashing out in kind. Thank you.
Thank you, Ellen. I’m glad.
My dogs, great chasers of small mammals, pretty much ignore the birds (other dogs I’ve had chased them). I find them (birds (well, and dogs)) fascinating and can just sit and watch all day.
Even with the dogs, they can be taught to overcome their inner nature and learn behavior even when it is a seeming “predator-prey” thing or “stay out of my territory”. If they can, so can we, we only need to made aware of what we are doing and why….
The oddest thing with Ani is that she tends to chase them more when I am looking…
I get it. Idina and Fiyero often do things like that when I’m looking. As soon as I look away or get involved someplace else, it looses interest for them…
They just want to be seen as on guard, I think
Nice
Reblogged this on Stuart France.
We can learn a lot from watching the birds, something I seem to be doing more and more lately…
I shall be doing the same too 🙂
I’ve always loved the birds in the garden. My parents both knew their birds and encouraged us. Dad even put up a bluetit nestbox next to my bedroom window, and I watched them raise their brood with such joy.
I’m not sure what the guinea pigs make of them. Mild curiosity? They don’t get any close encounters, since when they’re in the garden, so am I.
Love to Ani <3
My dad had a picture window put on the side of the kitchen wall that overlooked the birdfeeders so he and my mother could watch them. He bought a book about the different birds of the area with lovely pictures of them. He spent years of enjoyment in this pursuit of bird knowledge. 🙂 — Suzanne
There seem to be fewer birds visiting my garden than there were when we moved here, 18 years ago. Then we had blackbirds, robins, thrush, wrens, goldfinch, sparrows, starlings, dunnocks, blue and great tits, wood pigeons, collared doves, greater spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers, magpies, jackdaws, herring gulls and many others. Now we only seem to see the tits, magpies, jackdaws, gulls and wood pigeons. There are a few starlings that hang out in a tree on the other side of the park that is at the bottom of the garden, but they seldom come into our garden, and there are far fewer than there were.
I greatly regret this. Perhaps it’s cats, perhaps the squirrels that live in the park. Maybe the magpies, but I find it very sad.
We have lost so many of our wild birds… I too find it sad. From predation to man’s disruption of their habitat,,,
I love to watch the birds too, but sadly don’t have many come into the garden yet. We’ve put up fat balls and a cuttlefish which are seeing interest, so it’s a start! The sparrows in the hedges bordering the park though are a noisy bunch, and both blackbirds and robins serenade us as we walk through the estate. I saw my first goldfinch of the year yesterday.
Spring is definitely here.
We get a lot of finches, blackbirds and the robins…
We had lots of finches come into the garden when we were in the cottage. They were wonderful to watch, but I loved to see the blackbirds raising their families every year.
Yes, they are lovely to watch…as are the bluetits 🙂
Ah, blue tits. Happy memories of Tit Terrace in the bungalow and 15 fledglings from Tit 1 over the May Bank Holiday. A year later, Tit 1 was again occupied, but Kamikaze Pete didn’t quite make it and Barney came to fetch us. Hubby picked him up in a tea towel and put him back in the box. The parents came back and gave him verbal tweet wellie and encouraged him to try again. Wonderful to watch.
Their interactions are lovely to watch 🙂
🙂
The heat is going out of the day here Sue, so I hope you’re not getting chilled.. Hugs to you all
I was well wrapped up 🙂
Good.
🙂
There is so much truth in that last paragraph and written so beautifully. Hope is the thing with feathers…
Hope has wings that never seem to tire… 🙂
Lovely, Sue!
My favorite subject! The photos are beautiful and your account of them is wonderful. Here’s to listen for what Mother Nature offers more often. You can stop and smell the roses, but not forget to listen for the birds. 🙂
They are always there if we listen😉
Yes they are! 🙂
I see birds landing every day outside my house in the garden. I love to watch them jump on the ground, up to the trees, from tree to other tree.