Life's Lesson

A flock of my dear little chirping sparrows caught my attention this evening when they began flying in a frenzy back and forth across the yard, in and out of the trees with lightning speed. I, being totally stupid about bird behavior, couldn’t figure out what they were doing but I took the camera outside to see if I couldn’t get a picture of whatever was going on. They were moving so fast that I couldn’t catch one of them sitting stilll and they were making a lot of racket.

In the very middle of this picture is a mother feeding her baby. Sadly, seconds after I snapped the shutter something I can only think was a hawk flew into the tree so fast that I only had a second to realize that it was bigger and faster than the little sparrows. I think it snatched one of these two and flew off before I could tell what was happening. Immediately after, every bird disappeared and it became very, very quiet.

So, now I know what all the frenzy was about and I feel really, really stupid that I couldn’t figure it out. I felt so bad but then reminded myself that the hawk had to eat too. Sometimes it’s hard to watch Mother Nature at work and it was especially difficult after watching this dear scene and now not knowing whether the mother is left without her baby or the baby is left without its mother.

As I write this the little sparrows are back chirping like they always do in the evenings and everything seems quite normal. Life goes on.