Blue Bird

A pair of blue birds started a nest in the birdhouse that Sydney built last summer. I was waiting to see if any birds would decide to build their nest in the brand new house on the big Ponderosa Pine tree. And I was delighted when I saw blue birds coming and going from it.

First they entered and stayed awhile and then a couple of weeks ago there was a flurry of activity and some very faint peeping eminating from up there. Almost any time of day I could look out at the bird house and see the comings and goings of the parent birds. They worked tirelessly all day long finding insects for the now loud and clammering baby birds. I finally concluded that is why we can hear birds early in the morning as soon as there is a hint of light in the sky; they have to get busy and feed their hungry babies.

The days continued and the parent birds spent all of the daylight hours finding food for their offspring. I wanted to get a picture of the beautiful birds with the blue wings but whenever I came near the birdhouse they stayed away only to return when I moved away.

One day I noticed that there was no chirping and no activity at the house on the tree. I was suprised that the little birds had grown up and flown away so quickly and also disappointed that I never got a good picture of them. Then a couple of days later I was doing some trimming of a lilac bush at the bottom of the big pine tree when I noticed something on the ground face down. It was an adult blue bird with bright blue wings laying there cold and dead.

A sadness came over me as I removed the bird and prepared a proper burial spot for it. I thought of it's constant care and total dedication to it's babies. Nothing could deter it from it's duties, nothing except death; a death that might have been brought on by it's own exhaustion or deprivation. A creature like that deserves a proper burial, don't you think? So there it lays among the flowers in a small grave lined with flat rocks and cushioned with large lilac leaves from branches freshly trimmed.