Don't Forget to Feed the Birds!

Another gray February day, Groundhog Day?  Who cares?  Everyone feeds on consumer superficiality, yeah. Just a pretense for more insecurity about where life is taking you, and it is taking you directly forward, like riding a bicycle, moving those petals around and around to take you somewhere though you may like going in circles too, less adventurous but more comforting.

I'm here at my kitchen table in early morning hours waiting for another glimpse of  a rare winter visitor to my feeders, a Red-headed woodpecker no less. I haven't seen a single one since moving to my hidden lake retreat two months and a year ago. But one suddenly showed up about a week ago and has been a regular here almost single day since I first laid eyes on its dramatic few colors. What a beautiful bird!

At 9:53 I was shocked out of my decaffeinated coffee drinking by the sudden sighting of not one, but TWO, yes TWO Red-heads on MY deck!  I was overcome with staring at them. One flew off the suet feeder and the other woodpecker followed in chase. One left for good, while the other began exploring the upper limbs of our giant lakeside willow tree. Then it would come back and forth to a large shallow bowl of sunflower seeds I placed on top of one of our deck posts. The red, black, and white beauty comes into the bowl over and over again.

12:12pm-guess what?  Both RED heads are back!  Amazing, and they're not chasing each other in this freezing weather. One of the woodpeckers has some grayish head feathers instead of red around the eyes, and the other is totally red-headed. A mated pair from this year, one adult and one youngster? One male, one female, or two of each? Who knows by their behavior? But its all good, I'm here, they're here and everything seems at peace now. So don't forget to feed the birds!