One morning this weekend, I listened to the chirping of the birds outside my house for 30 minutes as the sun rose. I recalled the trip my mom took my brother and me on to South America where we watched birds flying in their natural habitat in the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest and even met some ornithologists (people who study birds). These memories are forever engraved in my heart and mind (also seeing the monkeys climbing around their trees outside our cabin), and they deepen my experience of nature to this day (10 years later).
This weekend I noticed that there were different types of chirps, representing the different species of birds. I heard two birds communicating with each other and then after a couple of minutes of them chirping, the bird next to my house flew to the other bird it had been speaking with. I wanted to put “speak with” in quotes, but really they are speaking with each other.
All these beautiful, calming, rhythmic noises of the birds—to us they are soothing noises, ones we perhaps seek out on a computer when we don’t have direct access to a suburban window, but to the birds it is just business as usual, as they go about their day.
I found it both humbling as well as relaxing to tap a little deeper into the life of my neighborhood birds. I’m trying to make the most of being at home so much and this is certainly helpful. Furthermore, my observations of how the birds’ chirps were rhythmic and predictable in their number of consecutive sounds gave me a feeling of awe for G-d and His creations.
Mindful Nuggets 