Florida Scrub Jay. Happy Sunday!

Florida Scrub Jay, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL

Florida Scrub Jay, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

This is my third post of Florida Scrub Jay pics from my encounter with a pair on my last day in Florida for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. It was an extra, as in unplanned, day. My flight home was canceled, so, after a morning in the flied with my daughter Sarah, and after dropping her off at the airport in Orlando for her fight back to New Mexico, I made one last run out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge to catch the afternoon/evening light. Since it was extra time, I took the time to go look for Florida Scrub Jays where Sarah and my friend Rich had seen them one day when I was busy teaching a workshop. And they were there! Just two, likely a pair, but it was my first FSJ encounter in over 10 years, and my first ever on Merritt Island. I took way too many pictures. This is a collage of two shots that provides evidence for my contention that the Florida Scrub Jay is the most beautiful of eastern Jays.

The encounter was even more special because it was shared. A couple, the husband a fellow photographer, came up behind me and, feeling generous, I waved them up to stand with me so they could get photos too. (By then I was confident that the Scrub Jays were not alarmed at our presence at all…and in fact they were still sitting on their bushes when we decided we had devoted enough camera memory to them and walked on.) Sharing an experience like this with others, even if strangers, deepens my pleasure considerably. It is the shared wonder…awe reinforces awe…and the result is more joy. It is even more intense if you are sharing the experience with someone you already love, and I really wished Sarah were still there in those moments, but it is impossible not to love the ones you share with…or at least it is for me. I felt like I was radiating good will…good will that encompassed the cooperate Scrub Jays, and certainly my fellow photographer and his wife, in one big bubble of delight.

And I feel a bit of that right now. Partially it is memory, but it is also this sharing by proxy that is this post. I intend for you to share in the joy of discovery, in the wonder I experienced there in the field with these Jays. The thing about the generous eye is that light builds on light. In generosity you always get back as much or more than you give. Always. Because the light in you is met by the light in others, and is amplified. That is the way it works. Always. God is just good that way. God is good in all ways.

Happy Sunday!

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