Natural World Connections

Why I pay attention

First, birds began to fly down in front of my vehicle as if to tell me to slow down and pay attention. Then sleep started to become more elusive through nights of floating in half awake dreams with sound and colour. I would wake attempting to hold on to dream consciousness, but could not remember them.

A niggling piece of worry bored holes into my days leaving me with an unsettled feeling that percolated into a disturbing sense of calamity as weeks went by. Whenever I tried to pinpoint a feeling or a fact everything floated away dissolving into invisibility and wisps of nothing. Still, it was the birds that clearly caught my attention.

A golden eagle appeared one morning just above the gravel shoulder, flying alongside my vehicle as I drove down the highway. It seemed to be accompanying my drive much longer than any bird normally would. I began to wonder why, after it turned and flew higher, flapping into the distance. For the rest of the day, I could almost feel the intensity building around me in energetic waves as they ebbed and flowed, alerting me of oncoming news. I kept thinking about the eagle.

I found a tiny thrush struggling inside the fenced chicken yard

It was a few days after the eagle incident. I hadn’t noticed it until after I’d let the chickens out of the henhouse when they immediately ran for it, poking and pushing at it in their curiosity. It hardly moved. Rescuing it from their aggressive pecking, I gently picked it up and cradled it in my cupped hands. It fluttered and peeped, obviously in distress. I could not see any visible injuries, so I walked it to the edge of the yard, reached over the fence and opened my hands. It flew down into a row of nearby bushes and trees.

It flew down, not up, and not straight. This bothered me. I knew there was something wrong that it was struggling just to be. I called my sister and told her about the thrush. She told me she had been seeing similar activity among the birds in her area. Birds landing in places they didn’t normally land. Birds normally quiet sitting and peeping loudly at her as she walked through the garden.

The next day there were two bald eagles flying above my house. My husband said they were eyeing the chickens. Perhaps, but when bald eagles show up, I pay close attention.

About a week later, I received a phone call from my son. “There’s a horned owl sitting in the pine tree in the backyard.”

“What’s it doing?”

“Nothing. Scaring the little birds away, that’s all. It doesn’t move, just stares at me.”

“Is it hunting?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s probably nothing. Don’t worry, it’s probably just eyeing up the smaller creatures in your backyard.”

Owls are a big deal. As part of the complicated bio-system of Earth’s environment they are precious. As night messengers, it isn’t often that they pay you visit in broad daylight let alone come sit in your backyard and stare at you. It’s happened to me and as beautiful as the birds are, I am always a bit spooked when they fly into my path. I sent a text to my son saying it could be heralding a change in the weather.

A week later, a member of our large family passed away

There is a reason we are meant to live in the moment, not to reach too far beyond our present existence. We are meant to have a connection, a relationship with the natural world, with our environment. It is within this relationship that we are carried forward and gently coaxed into an awareness that change is coming. Whether good or bad, change is the one thing in life we can count on. The natural world speaks loudly and if we are even remotely connected, we eventually get the message. This time it was from the birds.

After experiencing the emotional marathon of gathering, supporting, and loving one another through the loss while doing what our family does, the birds were always there. We listened to cooing of the doves in early morning as we sat with steaming cups of coffee and felt tiny little plucks of joy when hummingbirds fluttered around our heads to feed and land in the high branches of the pine trees nearby.

Traveling back home, the eagles are watching our progress, letting themselves be seen in odd places that reassure us we are not alone. Little bird songs pop through the sounds of conversation at rest stops, reminding us that beauty is everywhere, and though our hearts still ache, their constant presence reassures us that life goes on.