Day 3 – Lessons from Nature: Patience

Every time I go north, the first sound I listen for is the sound of the black-capped chickadee (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buOzYlVxIPg). It’s the sound I most associate with the natural world. There is a calming feeling that rushes over my soul when I hear the gentle call of the black-capped chickadee while sitting in a boat or kayak in the middle of the lake. It’s a sound that makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. Needless to say, it’s my absolute favorite bird.

Only recently, I began my head first dive into a love for birding. I’ve always been interested in birds. My grandma is the expert birder. At the cabin, she’d be at the window looking out with her binoculars and try to teach me what some of the birds were. In Boy Scouts, I earned my birding merit badge with the help of my grandparents and spending time at the cabin, but I never jumped fully into being a “birder.” The Audubon Society declared 2018 as “Year of the Bird.” I made it my quest to become the best birder I can be. To do this, I spent lots of time going for walks near my house and just watching the bird feeders. I observed a lot of interesting things. Like everything in life, there seemed to be a hierarchy to getting what you wanted. The red-bellied woodpecker, a much larger bird, always seemed to get seeds whenever he/she felt like it, no matter who was at the feeder at the time. The white-breasted nuthatch, with a longer and pointier beak, also seemed to butt in whenever it deemed necessary. The house finches just always seemed to be there and only moved when being attacked by other house finches or saw a bigger bird or pointier beak on the way.

This brings me back to my favorite bird: the black-capped chickadee. While all the other birds were behaving like humans at a Walmart on Black Friday, the black-capped chickadee was waiting patiently for an opening to grab a seed. When the opening was there, it grabbed ONE seed and took off to eat it or store it in a nook for later. It then returned and waited for another turn at grabbing some food. It was absolutely fascinating. Sure enough an article came out exactly about what I was observing (https://www.audubon.org/news/how-chickadee-flocks-avoid-traffic-jams-your-feeder).

My love for the black-capped chickadee only grew. Here was a bird exemplifying what it meant to be patient. I know I’m guilty of standing in line at a grocery store or wherever and getting huffy when they need to call a manager over to see about a price check or do a return or the person’s significant other is making a run back to an aisle to grab more of an item. It’s good to take time and reflect on how I can be more patient because at the end of the day, it’s all going to work out. Like the chickadee, I can practice being more patient. Life is good and all will be well.