My childhood home was located along a busy two-lane highway in a small country village. We had identity as a village with a few stores, school, church, blacksmith, gas station, etc. But behind the houses that lined that highway lay quiet fields. And three large fields away from our house, the Conestoga Creek wound it's way through Lancaster County.
The creek was our playground. Not only was it a place to swim in summer, and, in a good winter, skate along its bends, but it also provided us with bird and plant life the whole year round. All of my older siblings were birders. And while I never got anywhere as good as they were in identification of species, I was always aware that there was a whole world flying above and resting among us that most of the population knows zero about.
And as an adult, I have discovered that a bird feeder brings them right to your window. So while the world is currently brown and grey, our birdfeeder world flashes with scarlet from the woodpeckers - pileated to downy, goldfinches whose feathers are changing from olive green to yellow, bluebirds, cardinals, the gray/black combos of nuthatches, juncos and chickadees - the colors and shades of all of them light up the February landscape. And they vie, cajole, boss, relinquish, retreat, attack, and chatter saucily most of the time!
Really, maybe as a species they aren't so removed!
No comments:
Post a Comment