A few mornings ago I was sitting on the porch, fiddling with a new camera, reading the directions. One booklet about something called “image stabilizer” showed how to shoot through bars (say you are at the zoo and there is this tiger . . .), shoot in such a way the bars disappear.
Pretty cool I thought. Then I felt movement, something, from just outside the porch – the arbor where a gourd hangs. A pair of Carolina wrens made a nest inside. Mom and Dad (can’t tell them apart) are ferrying food as fast as possible. Must be babies in side, hungry babies. But it wasn’t a parent coming with food.
Instead I looked up and there was a baby bird sticking its head over the opening, looking around – all mouth and beak and I could see lots of fluff – hasn’t gotten its feathers yet. Up went the new camera. But wait! It gets better. More baby birds – three in all, crowed around the entrance hole.
Amazing.
Ah, spring. Fledgling season. If you are a cat owner and your cat goes outside, now is the time to keep your feline inside. Cats kill baby birds just for the thrill. Horrible to think about but true. Better yet, make your feline an indoor companion all the time. That way wildlife can survive.
Right now all three of my felines and the two dogs are on the porch with me taking sunbaths. Those baby birds are less than five feet away in their gourd. Mom and Dad don’t worry about us because WE ARE THE ONES IN THE CAGE. The screen keeps us in and protects them.
Seeing the baby birds made me thing “it doesn’t get any better than this”. Then, the next morning, I looked out the kitchen window and there was a hummingbird darting through the fountain spray in the middle of the pond, taking a bath and sipping water on the fly. How cool was that?
Go outside. Sit a while. Listen. Look. Let Mother Nature have its way with you. Do it now because summer is coming and it will be too hot for all of us. Now is the golden time. Enjoy.
Lucy Beebe Tobias is a freelance writer and photographer living in Ocala, Florida. Her book 50 Great Walks in Florida was published by University Press of Florida in Februrary 2008.