A Sad Bird Story

I had attended today's blog to be about the first public meeting of Envision Easton which took place on Wednesday. It was an interesting and very positive event attended by about 70 Eastoners. But a happy story is for another day.

I've been feeding suet to my birds all winter long and have attracted a large number of woodpeckers.
Besides our common Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, I've seem the wonderful Red-bellied Woodpeckers pictured above. My bird feeders are near my driveway and yesterday I pulled in just as the little red-head landed on the suet. Always more nervous than the littler woodpeckers, the bird quickly ate a few bites before flying off with a beak full of suet. Why so nervous? woodpeckers never seem to touch the ground where the loathsome neighborhood cat waits for the unwary and the feeder is pretty safe from the hawks. I didn't think about the obvious until this morning when I realized she must have a nest she needs to get back to.

This morning I came out to go to school and found a Red-bellied woodpecker dead on the street just outside my driveway. Was she somehow killed by that miserable, murderous cat or a force of nature like the hawk and then dropped on the street? Perhaps not. On an early morning food run it looked as if she flew too low and was hit by a car. A terrible sight all beautiful feathers on a crushed body. I stopped to bury her and wonder about her nestlings. Hopefully the other parent can persevere.

What am I becoming that I feel the death of this little bird more than the lives and deaths of men?

Saint Luke had Jesus say "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?" Would that it is true although I suppose I'm too old to really believe it.