For the birds

     "How beautiful the leaves grow old. How full of light and colour are their last days." 

 – John Burroughs    

     

     Jack Frost comes unannounced each fall along with cooler days. One day I look out my kitchen window, and I see the trees surrounding my patio, bursting with colourful reds, oranges and yellows already! 

     

     Briefly, my mind drifts to a similar scene, a Maritime fall and the beauty I enjoyed each year growing up in my home province of New Brunswick. 

     I am glad my community was designed with lots of maple trees. Much leaf-raking but, the fall beauty here, is well worth it!  

     I am reminded of this delightful Indian legend: 

     "The leaves had just fallen from the trees and were lying on the bosom of Mother Earth, when the Great Spirit passed by. He could not bear to have them die and disappear, so to each leaf he gave a pair of wings; from the red leaf there arose a robin; from the brown, the swallow; from the golden leaf, the wild canary; and so the leaves lived again in the birds and rose up into the clear blue sky to give thanks to the Great Spirit, their Maker.      

     Thus, our lives can endure forever in the winged thoughts of gentleness, goodness and kindness that we have planted in the minds and hearts of all those whom we have known and therefore, loved."  

– an excerpt from Goforth of China (p. 305)   

     

     "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." 

 

— Willie Nelson  

     

     I recently heard on a news broadcast, that there is a sharp decline in our Canadian bird population. 

     It is estimated that we are losing over 270 million birds each year — suggesting that our domestic cat may be the culprit and number one cause. 

     But, we are told global warming, habitat loss, wind turbines, as well as cats, are some other factors. Maybe a well-supervised house cat like my son David's, would be the answer.  

     

     Perhaps, some unsupervised felines might even consider it sport, using their claws to cause many a cheerful songbird to come to a bloody end. 

     The many species, with their varied colours and songs, are yet another of God's gifts for our enjoyment. He is quite aware when one falls to the ground, as this little song reminds us and, one I sang with the children in those early teaching years — 

     "God sees the little sparrow fall, It meets His tender view. If God so loves the little birds, I know He loves me too."  

     

     Bringing to mind, another delightful song — this one is about pigeons. My son Brent, (now, called David) returned home from his Grade 1 class quite excited over a new song he had learned that day. 

      

     He enthusiastically suggested I teach it to my kindergarten class. Making it into a finger play, I did just that.  

    

My Pigeon House

"My pigeon house I open wide, 

And I let all my pigeons free. 

They fly all around on every branch, 

And they perch on the highest tree. 

And when they come back from their merry, merry flight, 

They close their eyes and they say, Good-night.

Coo-coo, coo-coo, (repeat)"

     "The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings." 

– J.M. Barrie 

(The Little White Bird)   

Today's Wisdom Thought:

     "A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?" 

– Edward Hersey Richards

                                                                                                                                                             

— beulah