The Elusive Twitchers
My church community has an abundance of birders. While the birds may be elusive, those that chase after them are not. So I felt very familiar with the Amish church community in Suzanne Woods Fisher’s Lost and Found.
Inspired by the birders in this novel, I took myself outside and waited…and then the Australian sun lulled me to sleep before I saw any birds (although I could hear them!).
Instead, I spent some time inside reminiscing over my most memorable bird moments…which didn’t involve waiting for hours!
1. The Lying Lyrebird
This Australian classic can imitate the calls of birds or, in captivity, crying babies and evacuation alarms. On a 300-metre bushwalk, I came across one going through its repertoire. A whipbird, a black cockatoo, a king parrot, a rosella, and a kookaburra—only it hadn’t quite mastered that one. It faltered mid-laugh.
2. Rosella Roost
On my back verandah, we have a nesting box for rosellas. Whenever the eggs hatch, we take a photo every week…and they look so ugly! One season, we were about to leave for two weeks, and we took a photo that morning. They were all dead! We didn’t have the time to deal with it then, but we did first thing when we got home…only to find that one was still alive. Not such a charming story, but it was memorable!
3. Chicken Dinner
On an Easter weekend, I volunteered to take care of the chickens at school. They were only a few days old, and I was very excited at the prospect! All went well Day 1…Day 2 I arrived and one was dead. That was a sad moment…not just for the chicken but also because these chickens belonged to the kids in Yr 8. And by the end of the weekend, I had managed to lose four chickens.
4. Proud Peacock
As you may have read in my blog Think of the Sparrows, this peacock is a frequent sight. Every year we collect its feathers, marvelling at all the different shapes and colours…mostly the shimmering blues and greens!
I realise now that half of my stories were about birds dying…but they didn’t all die.
As I write this, listening to the rosella singing on the verandah, I’m reminded why I don’t feel the need to join the twitchers. Birds are all around where I live! Still, if we want to find the more elusive ones, we do have to search a little harder and wait a little longer. Sometimes in silence, as Trudy was told.
God’s beauty is always around us, sometimes waiting at our front door, and sometimes we might need binoculars to see it. But He has promised that we will find Him.
Want to join the community of Stoney Ridge in their birding? Click the image to buy.
