Free as a bird?

Editor’s Note: The following column originally appeared in the July 29, 2010 edition of the Daily Mail.

Many of us watch birds flying around in the sky and envy their freedom. It seems that the ability to just take off from the ground or a tree, and soar up into the wild blue yonder would be a wondrous thing. There would be no constraints to keep you earthbound. “The sky’s the limit!”

My office has one side that is completely filled with glass windows, which go from the floor to the roof. I have a very good view of what is happening outside. I can even see the outside reflected on my monitor and the small TV screen on my desk. When I turn slightly to the south I can see a portion of our pond and when I turn north I can see our lawn and beyond it, our soybean field.

This location has given me much insight into the life of our feathered friends. I have the bird feeder and the humming-bird feeder hanging from a Catalpa tree right behind me so I can identify many birds that drop by for lunch — or for breakfast or dinner.

To add to this education we have had a pair of swallows build their earthen home above a window outside our view room. When I take a break from my desk, I often sit outdoors on our deck. This gives me an easy view of the activities that go on in the little swallow home.

You have heard me talk about our Canada geese that nest with us each year. This year was somewhat different. Our resident pair did raise six goslings on our pond, but another family that had nested on a nearby pond came to join our family. We had too many geese for our patience, the location, or the cleanliness of our shoes.

I have learned from all of these fowl neighbors that being a bird is not all that it is cracked up to be.

The little swallows spent at least two weeks daily bringing beaksful of mud from our pond bank to try to get the mud to stick to the siding and the window frames. There are a dozen or more globs of mud still hanging on our walls from their unsuccessful attempts. All this time, the two little birds were working hard as they flew from the pond to the house and then back again. Occasionally, when one of us was outside, we would see them sitting on a nearby twig waiting until we left so they could resume their labors. When the nest was completed, then frequent visits to the nest site continued as the feeding program began. The young have left the nest now, but I can see one of the adult birds right now flying to the home site again. Are they planning a second family already?

The geese have a similar dedication to their young. From the minute the first egg is laid until the entire family flies away together, there is never a moment when both parents are not on the alert, sitting on the nest to keep the eggs or the young birds warm, or guiding them through the life sustaining practices they will need. I turn from my family pictures on the wall in front of me and look at the geese, the swallows, the cardinals, wrens, or even the sparrows and thank God that I was a human mother and not a bird.

Sure, I can’t fly, but I can drive. I can drive and buy food to bring home for my young if I want to. I can even drive to leave my young with a friend or relative for a break. But, if I don’t keep at my job to earn enough money to pay for the gas, I might have to go out in the garden and eat worms with all those other fowl creatures.