The week, in sum:
Ongoing Discoveries
Four days ago.
Rustling in bush outside my office window. Quick break from writing to
investigate. Just giving up after fruitless search when higher up in a break in
the foliage I see a mass of thick twigs. Oh my! As my eyes follow the hollow in
the leaves, I see that the nest has two light blue speckled eggs. The next day
it had three. The third day, still three. Yesterday: four!
By day: Watching
and Being Watched
I can see her
just outside my window. Not clearly, just if she moves a bit or the sun finds
its way through the thickly leafed stalks – then I can detect her shape in the
light beam. I’ve watched her every day this week, and felt her there for days
before I’d confirmed it. Just after
sunrise today, I was stealthy enough to catch her upraised tail – dark down the
center, edged with white stripes – warming in the cool of the morning her four
precious eggs. And she noticess and watches me:
when I let the four-leggeds out into the yard; when I take a daily tally
of eggs; and probably even when I feel so disguised, glancing at her through
the screened window.
By night:
Incessant Voices
It went on and
on, all night. Actually, it wasn’t just last night; it has been occurring for
over a week now. Singing, “chatting,” and the occasional loud “chack!” I know it was She Who Resides,
just below my office window. It was she who trilled “phweet phwoo!” (the call
of appreciation for another’s alluring beauty) last Sunday afternoon. She and
the others, they’ll do that: mimic what
they hear, even that lascivious whistle of one human to another.
For life:
Interconnection with the Winged Ones
For me the
nesting time is winter. Dark cold days bring me to my inner hearth, that place
where inspiration and quiet pursuits live. By the time spring rolls around, I
am more energized, perhaps motivated by the seemingly ceaseless birdsong,
flitting, and prolific growth of all things green. This twenty-four hour
ongoing engagement with the mockingbird who has set up home just beside mine,
brings inner and outer together for me. She motivates me to write, to explore
the entries in field guides that teach me who she is, who the mimidae are. I wait in hopeful
observation for the emergence of chicks…praying to be present and nearby for
the first fracture of the shell that will reveal her young, that will grow up
to be, perhaps, my vocal and vigilant and welcome neighbor next springtime.
