This One's for the Birds
wishing you that special feeling that can only be found when a bird swoops in and steals your heart
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Birds. What can I say?
This is a real comment exchange I had once on social media.
What’s your morning routine to start your day off right?
Well, as soon as I wake up, I can usually hear the birds singing. So I take a moment to be thankful for the birds…
You’re grateful for birds? Every morning? Wooooooowwwww…
To be honest, it didn’t strike me as unusual until that moment. Wait, other people don’t do that? 🤣
I confess, I have quite a few birds in my life that make me wake up every morning grateful for them, whether through their morning songs or just the sheer delight of memory. I’ve introduced a few of my feathered neighbors to you already!
There’s the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, who actually wakes me in the morning with just the sound of her wings…
And there are the Semi-palmated Sandpipers, who warm my heart every year with their migratory visits…
And of course, there are Eyebrows and Fluffles, the White-throated Sparrows who have taught me so much about life, and who fill the air with the most beautiful songs…
And there will be so many other special birds in my life to introduce you to as time goes on. But the one I’d like to spend a moment with today is the Mourning Dove. Who does Morning Stretches!
There can be no argument that morning rituals are beneficial. None. I won’t have it. My morning rituals prominently feature coffee, in all its wondrous forms…
…Now then, where was I? Oh yes, right, morning rituals! 🤣
Morning gratitude is a wonderful way to start your day. A habit of trying, in your first moments of awareness, to latch onto something for which you are thankful, is not a magical cure for all ills but it is an extremely sensible foundation for general resilience!
In the morning, the Mourning Dove sings the most lovely, gentle, haunting, floating song, for which it is named. It is a mourning that refuses to be bound into despair, a mourning that echoes softly and stirs sweetly, and reassures that mourning may last the night, but joy comes in the morning. It makes me grateful.
Morning stretches are also a wonderful way to start your day. A habit of trying, in your first moments of physical stirring, to touch your toes and reach for the stars, is not a magical cure for all aging but it is an extremely sensible foundation for general well-being!
In the morning, the Mourning Dove performs the most graceful, elegant, unhurried, thorough series of stretches, for which I’m not sure it receives nearly enough credit. It is a ritual that refuses to be rushed, that spans beak to tail, that encompasses every feather and warms every muscle, and paves the way for a day of hunting and pecking and chasing and flapping. It makes me giggle. And reminds me to do my stretches.
And if all that were still not enough to start your day off on the right note, the Mourning Dove takes a final bow and folds his wings into the shape of a heart, so that you may carry the image into your daily cup of coffee and be reminded that, after all, it’s all about love, isn’t it?
All of it, from the first waking thought through the final stretch to the last note of the fading mourning song.
Can it possibly still seem strange to think that one might wake up and be thankful for birds, each and every morning?
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Last night I thanked the robins for singing me down the street! I thank the birds, too!
Beautiful post and images Sydney. That sounds like such an amazing way to start the morning with the calls and songs of those birds. I like how you describe the Mourning Dove's call as "most lovely, gentle, haunting, floating song." Also, the White-throated Sparrow's call - I like to think of that song as truly heralding in Spring.