Tag Archives: robins
All these kids
My resident robins had been expecting for some time, and when I saw Dad depart their nest beneath the garage eaves yesterday with what appeared to be poo in his beak, I figured the bundles of joy had arrived. I had confirmation today when I saw Mom perched atop a fencepost, an earthworm wriggling in her beak. She seemed […]
Playing God
At this time of year, it’s easy to pity bird parents, whose every waking moment seems given to providing for babies fully as big as they are. I observe this each June with robins who — having successfully reared and fledged their first brood — are trailed everywhere by sharply chirping, heavily speckled offspring who seem to have carried […]
Building toward yes
When I looked up at the robins’ nest this morning, I was shocked to see how the youngsters had grown. It’s only in the last few days that they’ve begun twittering when their parents arrive with food. Before that, the only evidence of their arrival was their silent, perpetually open beaks — four — jutting skyward. Now, […]
Constancy
I am feeling the melancholy weight of human inconstancy: what people say and don’t mean, what they mean and don’t say. Or what they seem to mean earnestly one day but somehow not the next, or say with great conviction, only to soon recant. It feels painful, this dissonance, the shifting sand of what people say […]
Praise
I thought of how the mysterious creative force that moves all around and in us is ever ready to please us. How it waits always on our attention, waits for us to see, to hear, to attend to this moment. Waits for us to understand that every hallelujah requires not only the wonder of this life, but the praise of our presence.
Vulnerable
Yesterday’s fledging of four baby robins born beneath my garage eaves was an all-day affair, with the first out of the nest shortly after 6 a.m., and the last still in at 7 p.m. But the straggler appeared gone when I awoke this morning, and I’ve seen Mom feeding two of the youngsters, one perched […]
Meditatio Ephemera 