A Saint Francis moment
I’m sitting at the breakfast table with my bestie (two childless dog ladies just chillin’1) and my mom (not childless obviously but also a dog lady); none of us are miserable—in fact we are all very happy; we are sitting there, about to eat, when they strike the window, two small bundles of feathers.
We hurry outside to find the two songbirds contorting themselves on the deck. Feathers, wings, necks and heads seem to be moving in ways they should not. One bird is mottled and olive green, the other mottled and brown, both so muddled in their colors and markings that they can’t be conclusively identified even by the two naturalists I’m with.
They struck hard, and both birds look rough, but you never know. We fetch two small boxes, paper towels, gloves for Mumsie. The mottled brown bird objects to being placed gently into its box; the olive green one is quieter. You never know.
We bring them inside and put the boxes on a table, being sure to keep the tops securely shut. Then we retreat, not wanting to scare the birds further, and I know my mom says a prayer.
As we eat and talk, it’s quiet on the other side of the room, and my gaze keeps straying to the two boxes. I’m hoping, but you just never know.
Then, in the middle of one of us talking about something I’ve already forgotten, there it comes—an urgent scratching from one of the boxes. The songbirds are tired of listening to us eat our French toast on the good cinnamon-raisin bread and drink our creamy tea. They want out!
We take the big box out first. My mom carefully opens the cardboard. Quick—blink and you’ll miss it—the bird flutters out, flying away into the ash tree. We cheer.
Back for the second one—you never know, you just never know, but there’s a little scrape as we pick it up. Out on the deck, it too flies free, into the dogwood, into the high-bush cranberry, into the rest of its life. Even the dog watches, mesmerized, motionless.
We have lost a few birds a year on our decks. Around the world, many birds die every day, colliding with glass in city and country, no matter what decals or ribbons or strings people put up, trying to save them.
Yet you can save a few who strike. And when you do, it feels like the heavens have opened; it feels like Saint Francis, or the mother of life, are standing there with you, opening their hands to the leaves, saying a blessing to those tiny, unidentifiable feathers that have already disappeared into the brush.
We have ribbons on our windows at home, and recently someone asked me if the decals on our windows at work were intentional or should be removed. Yes! They are intentional. As many of you probably know, people place decals and ribbons on windows to try to discourage birds from striking the glass.
VOTE BLUE this fall. (And picture me waving to my many childless cat lady friends.)