 |
Environmental
Stewardship Commission
(MEESC) |
 |
|
Environmental
Stewardship Commission
(MEESC) |
|
The Grosbeak
by the Rev Roger Weaver
She stood puffed up in the bellowy down on the ground underneath our feeder. She was busy scratching and working the snow for left over sunflower seeds. I was surprised that she didn’t fly away when I came out to refill the feeders. She didn’t even fly when Toby came racing by; of course Tody didn’t notice her.
Several Falls ago I pointed out a ruffed Grouse to Toby. He ran right over the top of the Grouse trying to get to some chipmunk. Toby is all Britany, but he’s no bird dog. Anyway this time he passed up a Pine Grosbeak. As I came closer she tried to fly off, but couldn’t leave the ground. I walked off, leaving her there to feed for herself and thinking that she was easy prey for whomever might come along.
In the days to come she would appear at different places, and she was always puffed up against the 20 belows we were having. I thought of intervening, of picking her up, trying to help with the wound, of caring for her, of protecting her; but I dismissed it quickly, thinking that adults don’t do that kind of thing. I would stand on the hillside watching her crouched against the wind. My presence didn’t seem to bother her. She seemed friendly, almost tame, but we never touched.
I remembered the story of a couple in Isabella who had a wolf come to live with them. Or was it that he came to die with them? Anyway, he was injured or sick and they found him hanging out around the fringes of their home. Slowly, bit by bit, he edged closer until he was actually sleeping against one of their windows. They brought him in from the cold and placed him in their living room so that he could sleep next to the wood burner. He died with them in their living room.
I kept watch on the Grosbeak. She generally had a place just underneath the feeder. Then one day she was gone. I looked along the hillside and around the bunkhouse. There were no tracks, no signs. Nothing was there. It was just empty. And that emptiness shifted from the barren snow to a place just below my sternum.
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Holy Trinity Church Box 65 Elk River, MN 55330-0065 USA |
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