I am not sure what this bird has been into. It looks like it might be spider web…but on this day with a foot of fresh snow on the ground, I don’t know where the Titmouse would have found a web. It could be cocoon material…or it might just be fine breast feathers from preening. The bird landed on the rail of the deck, about 3 feet from the thermopane window while I was photographing birds at the deck feeding station. I got off this one good shot before it moved on…probably right after looking up, as it clearly is here, and seeing me behind the glass. This is a full frame, uncropped shot, and taken from about as close as the Canon SX50HS will focus at the long end of the zoom. Though some detail is lost to the thermopane, at this distance there is detail to spare!

Canon SX50HS. 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 640 @ 1/750th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.

And for the Sunday Thought. It is rare for me to post a bird, or any animal, image on Sunday…though at least one third, going on one half, of my photographs overall must be birds (and bugs). I am not sure why…perhaps because, in season, I already post a lot of birds and bugs, and Sunday should have something different…on the theory that different means special. Birds and bugs are my ordinary…Sunday should be, in the spirit of celebration, extraordinary (or at least unordinary, if we can not manage extra).

Or maybe, though I hope this is not true, it is because the single-minded self-centered will to live that is so evident in the feathered and winged somehow obscures the spirit for me. That would be sad, and if true, is certainly something I hope will be fixed before I am finished. 🙂

Because, of course, that single minded, self-centered will to live is a projection. The bird is not aware of being self-centered or single-minded. It is only aware, if you can call it awareness, of the will to live. It, in fact, simply is the will to live.

It appears that only we humans, who share that same will to live, as it is an essential expression of the Spirit in space and time, have to guard against the single-minded and self-centered aspect of it. We have been given the gift of care…the gift of knowing, of realizing, that we share time and space with the Titmouse, and that we must make room for the Titmouse to live beside us. We have been given the gift of knowing that we share time and space with each other…beyond the bounds of mate and nestlings, flock and kind, we know we share time and space with all that is, and, at our best, when the Spirit is most full in us, we care. That gift of caring, that gift of love, is, I think, what it means to be human. If we have a special place in the heart of the Creator, and I believe we do, it is because we have inherited the gift of care for all that is that is at the core of creation. That is an awesome, and an aweful gift…and our movement toward embracing it is the measure of our true humanity…of the progress of the Spirit in us.

And maybe that is why I don’t post more images of birds on Sunday. 🙂 

Happy Sunday!