Maudie Again?  Impossible!  Maybe????

In April of 2016 I wrote of Maudie and Jack,  the doves who took up residence one year beneath the patio cover of our Michigan home.   They sat on eggs  and hatched two babies.  I did not take photos of that time but I did take notes.  Since then there have been three moves to where I am now in California,  and to my surprise beneath the patio cover here,  a dove sits on her nest and eggs, however many I don’t know.  My son John took the photo of the dove and lo,  she does look like Maudie.  I don’t know how long doves live nor how far they can fly.  It seems impossible that it could be Maudie,  but who is to know for sure?

She is about ten feet outside the kitchen window and I look at her and she sees me.  Her beak is turned toward me so I think she is looking at me.  Her eyes are steady and I don’t know if birds blink intentionally.  But she is beautiful.  It just seems more than a coincidence that another dove should find the home I live in to be of such a secure place that she wishes another family to be born where I am.  My grandson William could not believe that first Maudie allowed me to move her and her nest from one place to another without a squawk.  A loud racket at least.  But she didn’t.  And he is much older now so I wonder what he will think of this dove sitting on another nest beneath the patio cover a world away from the time of the first Maudie.

In the previous essay I wrote that I learned that creatures,  no matter the species,  have memory.  Birds are not forgetful.  Maudie remembered my care for her and her babies from previous times so she built her nest outside my kitchen window the first time.  Well,  I am learning,  there is either a telepathic chain of command or memory bank that involves all of us.  And I am confronted every day with opening my mind to the vast encumbrances that preclude our thoughts from encompassing a very primary fact.  That there is connection with all of life,  even with the most mundane.  And the bird species is more than simple,  they are as complex in miniature as we think we are giants in intellect.

I will keep you in the loop with my companions.  We are at the edge of understanding.

AT The Edge. . .

We are only at the
beginner’s edge of understanding.

So much yet to learn,
to ferret out in languages understood.
So much and yet so little time.

Let us then be serious
in offering our blessings
in gratitude
for what has been given.

But let us choose our illusions
carefully.  Relationships have
been formed and dissolved
under illusions.

And we too?

photo by
john stanley hallissey