Hummingbird Messages

How strong is the magnetic power of the mind? Strong enough to bring a hummingbird nest to me in the wild?

Research continues to show us that our thoughts are more predictive and prophetic and full of power than the skeptical, modern scientific mind might be willing to believe. (Hello, placebo effect!) I have had a few kind of unexplainable experiences in my life, one of which is kind of "willing" certain things into my life. I'm a praying kind of chick but I can't honestly say that I specifically prayed for these things, just thought fondly and hopefully, maybe even confidently about find them and then they showed up. Its always things. I am thinking of a certain food or movie and then someone else brings it over or suggests it (this happens with A and I fairly frequently which we joke is our private ESP), I am hoping for a particular kind of dishware or a specific item of clothing and lo and behold they show up in my local Goodwill, and then recently....a hummingbird nest came my way. I made a New Year's Resolution to find a hummingbird nest in the wild. I know that sounds kind of loony but as I mentioned, I've had enough of these experiences to feel like its possible and so I just stepped out and wrote it down.

There are the boys and Aunt Sheila right before we walked down the trail and saw the nest.

Then this spring, during a miniature hike at one of our local parks with my Aunt Sheila, we stopped under a scraggly wild apple tree for a minute to admire a woodland pond and I just saw a hummingbird dart above my head and when I looked up, there was the nest, right over me with the mother, snugged down inside it.

There it is! See it?

How about now? Astounding, right?

Life is amazing. Like I said, I have had this kind of thing happen to me before but it isn't daily and its so powerful and special feeling when it happens that I still feel really astonished and elated when it happens. I want to tell everyone and shout, "You won't believe what happened to me!!!" from my sunroom roof.

Just like my previous, mysterious visitation with woodcocks, I'm enough of a mystic to go hunting for meaning in these kinds of experiences. I believe God speaks, I believe lessons are everywhere, I believe that all of nature is the realm of the Spirit and I believe that paying attention matters.

Hummingbird color plate from Ernst Haeckel's ''Kunstformen der Natur'' (1899) via Wikipedia

Hummingbirds beat the symbol for infinity into the air around themselves over and over, "forever" is their lift. I love that idea. May the idea of forever lift me. They are able to pause, midair even in the midst of flight at tremendous speeds, which is a wonderful vision of presence and attention. They built their tiny little nest out of lichen scales and line the inside with spider's silk, which is both incredibly strong and also very flexible and basically means that they create an expandable, elastic home that grows to allow their babies more space as they mature. So fabulous, yes? I aspire. (That gives me shivers, y'all!) May I mama like a hummingbird, in this and every home. They also are connected intimately with flowers and cannot survive without them. I've always been a flower lover and have let my Master Gardener training go but its a good reminder that I belong outside, that I need blooms and buds and petals in my world and that I should keep gardening in my tray of possible pursuits when I pick my career options in my next life stage. They are also amazingly resilient in hard times. Like many birds they have astounding caloric needs and require a very hefty food source. If food is scarce or at night when it gets cold they have to ability to willfully put themselves into a meditative state with drastically slowed heart rate and breathing and they will even appear dead in their survivalist stupor. When conditions are right they will "resurrect" and go about their business. Wonderful, no?

I waited until the mama had finished raising her young ones and abandoned the tiny little nursery and then the boys and I went back to collect it. Its sitting on my window sill now. So wonderful to have these messages sent our way....watch your world, friends, the truth is out there!  

Poetry Friday: Nest Song

Happy Poetry Friday! Its nesting season and all around the house we are watching pairs of birds defending territory, mate and build homes. In honor of all the bustle I am using one of my natural treasures as a writing prompt. I found this sweet little nest wedged into a dooryard shrub after all the leaves had come down in winter in the center of a secret maze of branches.

Ornithology
A bird is a dandy, a primping sheik,
A textile wizard, with a needled beak.
A nest is a circular, spiral of life,
An egg cup holding potential flight.
A chick is a greedy, squeaking wheel,
A pin-feather craft with a wobbling keel.
A flock is whirling, southward gust,
A chattering ballet in the autumn dusk.
A birder is a lonely and  desperate scout
A sentry of skies and feeder lookout.
A old nest in winter is his private proof,
An avian placard on the cupola roof.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! We are celebrating Ru's 7th birthday and there may be some bird watching, some nest hunting and eating of malted milk ball eggs.

Hawk's Nest

We have a gigantic white pine towering over our house. It is about two or three stories taller the top of our big three story colonial, a giant of a tree. I love the feeling of it's sturdy hulk staking the property lines to the top of our hill. The neighbors say that there were once several big pines like that scattered on our lot. Now the only one left is that one lone giant, rooted just over the hedge on the nuns property (yes, our next door neighbors are a convent full of extremely warm sisters).

Our drive in October

Even though it is a magnificent tree it is perilously close to our house which means both that in the fall our drive is showered with a stunning carpet of golden needles in the fall and that I sit shuddering in my bed every high wind rainstorm that we get, listening to the old tree creaking and moaning right over our heads wondering if someday it will fall crashing into our roof and saw off our master bedroom or go galumphing through to the sunroom below.

Image by Tilton Lane via Flickr

When the tree guys starting coming by giving estimates to chop down the diseased hemlocks and the large straggling chokecherry we sure thought wistfully about making a call on our neighbors to discuss dismantling their giant in the bargain. That is, until we realized that the pair of red-tailed hawks we've seen wheeling over the house had mated and nested, right in the top of the great tree. I can't blame them. I'd nest there too if I was in the neighborhood. The have clearly picked carefully the biggest, most secure spot in the area and although I'm sure it is a bit chilly in a stiff wind (the tree is at the tippy top of the hill we live on top of) it has to have a regal view and feel like the best place around to bring up your young. We nested next door, clearly we thought it was a good spot too.

The king pine

The whole idea of taking the tree out will have to wait for a later date but more importantly, in the meantime we have the privilege of having a family of hawks raised up right next to us. I am pleased that I decided to go for bees instead of backyard chickens and thinking fondly of the effect on local bunny rabbits and voles that might be so unlucky as to discover our vegetable garden.

One of our hawk parents leaving the nest

 You can already hear loud cheeping when you walk down the driveway and see one of the parents swoop out of the tree, heading for the heat vents high over our hill. I haven't been able to locate the nest so far, somewhere in the heart of the tree, far from prying eyes but I keep looking, figuring one of these days I'll figure out where to look when I see the parents looping in and out. Now I need to get out, on the double, and get a pair of binoculars.

Related articles

• Hawk Cam | Live From the Nest (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)
• High-Rise Hawk in a Tangle (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)

Nesting Begins!

Yes, today the nesting began in earnest.

I have been searching madly in the "free" section of Craigslist...(do check out the fabulous iPhone app if you are equipped)...for a changing table or a low dresser that could double as such. No dice. I've been looking for a couple of weeks and A has been threatening to take his grandmother's beautiful heirloom writing desk into the kids room for changing diapers on if I didn't get something in two weeks time. Honestly, I think he was even a little generous and turned a blind eye for perhaps longer than the supposed "limit."

We got word that we were supposed to have a Nor'easter coming through tonight and so I thought I'd make a mad dash for curb browsing and see if I could find something. There had been a post on Craigslist recently about a family who was moving and had dumped a good quantity of stuff on the curb and so I thought I'd take a gander and see if there was anything left before the rain got at it.

There wasn't much left. I picked through the bagged goods and rescued two china saucers, a golden, three armed plant stand. There was a low dresser that was the right height but it was a bit long (I didn't want anything imposing) and it was real wood which meant that it was heavy. Heh. No way I was gonna be able to lug it into the car, I could barely lift one corner. I overlooked repeatedly and then finally noticed the flimsy, seen-better-days, made out of fake materials computer desk on the other side of the driveway and then thought..."Hey!" and somehow I could see potential. I could barely lift it and it only sorta fell apart upon lifting and it totally fit in the trunk of The Mommy Van. Score.

I got it home and Ru (believe it or not!) helped me carry it out of the car, up the stairs into the house and then up the stairs to the boys room to boot. And, no, you can't have him, he's my four year old. I plan to feed him cookies tomorrow to make sure he stays.

So, we hauled it up, I hammered and glued and then sawed and hammered some more and lo and behold...I created our own little changing table/ psuedo dresser clothing shelf unit. Presto! Nothing but garbage was used in its creation.

Some of my cuts were a little rough (I was working with a pruning saw, points for resourcefulness) and there are some raw edges that aren't sanded or painted yet, but...like everything else in the house I am dreaming it in another color anyhow. I'm thinking, cherry red, in a high gloss?

I also arranged the living room into what I think may be our working model at the moment  and put the first brush strokes on the walls.

I realize the color looks a little glaring and a bit Barbie at the moment but its only the first coat and it was a night-shot. That's all I'm painting right there...just that square over the mantle...I think...I'm considering painting in the rectangle in the middle of the mantle too. Not sure on that. After a few more coats it will be a sleek and modern raspberry and will set off the big white candle-holders I bought the other day at a fabulous tag sale!

Am excited about the home day I have coming tomorrow....more arranging and nesting and maybe even painting to come!