Courageous Little Bird

Hooray! It's Friday! What a long week it's been. Sunday morning I'll be helping an organic farmer with a bird census he wants taken on his land – that ought to be fun (actually, it's going to be an ongoing project). I don't have any plans for Saturday and will probably spend the day catching up on some long overdue reading...I've gotten so far behind. Recently, I finished reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (recommended to me by Nuthatch). The adventures of Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery helped me appreciate how utterly simple and easy my life is.

I concede the following remark is a hasty generalization, but I do think our culture today has way too much leisure time and are quick to despair with problems that seem overwhelming and insurmountable, like paying a late fee on a video rental or fretting over where to go out to eat. I know I've been guilty of this and more as of late. Maybe we've earned such conveniences, but reading this book made me wonder how I would have endured, as the person I am today, during the more difficult aspects of their arduous journey. I suspect I would have launched into barrage of complaints within minutes of numbed toes or whined incessantly after the 10th mosquito bite.

The Lewis and Clark expedition inspires courage.

This past Tuesday at Pheasant Branch Prairie, Becky and I watched a male Common Yellowthroat feign injury like neither of us have ever witnessed. The little guy flew directly at us with loud alarm notes, dropped to path, landing only a few feet away. As if injured, he frantically fluttered around on the ground trying to lure our attention presumably away from its nest site or perhaps its mate. I've never observed such extreme behavior in a warbler before, but I suspect it's very typical what they have to do in the presence of a threatening predator intent on a meal. One wonders if these birds are aware of the ingenious deception or is it merely an instinctive adaptation. To my mind, the intensity of this bird's effort left little doubt he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. I was duly impressed by the display and the risk it exposed itself to.

Birds inspire courage.

Common Yellowthroat © 2006 Mike McDowell