Last summer I
took on the project of documenting Eastern Meadowlark activity in my local
national park. I went to the meadow nearly every day; as a novice birder, I
needed lots of practice watching the birds move through their various stages of
breeding. By all accounts, they had a pretty successful season—and one I was
thrilled to see unfold. By the time the meadow was mowed on September 2, the
original five or six birds nesting at two separate ends of the meadow had a
combined flock of about two dozen. I continued to monitor them, though more
casually and less frequently, through the fall and winter months to see whether
they would migrate or remain in the area. They stay, all winter, though
sometimes in other nearby fields.
In April of
this year, I again began observing the birds in earnest. Believing that I had a
better sense of what to look for, I went only twice a week. At first, the
Meadowlark activities met my expectations: they sang and chittered, gathered
grasses to build nests, carried grasshoppers to feed nestlings, and later
encouraged fledglings to catch bugs on their own. Gradually, however, I
realized I was seeing fewer Meadowlarks than last year. Suddenly, in the last
week of August and again the first two mornings of September, I saw none. Not a
single one.
Something was
different this season from last. People who know more than I do about birds are
trying to help me figure it out, including a wonderful park service intern who
is crunching some numbers to determine where the differences lie. We had two
particularly heavy rainfalls about ten days apart in June—each time, almost two
inches in less than an hour. Because Meadowlarks nest in covered depressions in
the ground, could rain have flooded and damaged the nests at a critical time?
But the birds were here in July and most of August. Why have they disappeared
now, when they were still around this time a year ago? Could they be nearby,
just in a slightly different place, one where I haven’t yet learned to look?
Suddenly I feel like a novice birder again.
Even as I
ponder questions about the Meadowlarks, I realize I am also thinking about
Spirit, for I sense some parallels. Sometimes I catch glimpses of the Spirit,
as bright and quick as any bird. I begin to recognize its song and think I have
finally learned how it operates, say, in my prayer life, or in my sense of
call, or in my openness to patience and forgiveness and healing. Then something
shifts. What I expect to see is suddenly silent, invisible. The pattern has
changed. I am back to being a novice as I watch and wait again.
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