"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." Albert Einstein

I'm really into nature. I worked outside as a naturalist for several years, and I've seen some pretty amazing things. I've always been interested in the outdoors. It's always changing and has the capacity to teach, to awe, and to heal. This blog is going to be about those things- observations, insights, and maybe some general naturalist knowledge, too. My husband and I love to take pictures, so I'll include those when relevant.

Yesterday, we received about 7 inches of snow. Nothing special, except that when you live in Georgia, people tend to freak out about even the slightest amount of the white stuff. Instead of stocking up on food or water, what did my husband and I stock up on? Bird seed. We currently have 7 feeders up in our yard, including a thistle sock, two suet feeders, and a hummingbird feeder. We filled them all to the brim the day before the storm, anticipating a mob.

In the morning, the feeders were indeed mobbed by various small birds- goldfinches, tree sparrows, white-throated sparrows, eastern towhees, white-breasted nuthatches, titmice, and cardinals. Some birds hopped around in the snow; others scuffled beneath our window feeder for cast-off seeds. I've never seen so many goldfinches. There must have been at least 50 at the busiest.

Amazingly, this was not the most birds we had in the yard. A little after breakfast, we noticed a small flock of grackles and red-winged blackbirds in the backyard. Roughly an hour later, we had a horde of about 1,000 birds descend upon our feeders and proceed to completely eat us out of seed. It was unbelievable. The ground fairly seethed with birds. I watched two grackles face off over our tray feeder, rearing back on their legs and spreading their wings and squawking at each other with voices like rusty hinges. My husband said they were fighting over who was going to eat the seed.

It was then I realized that although we enjoy the pleasure of watching these birds, we were also providing them a crucial service- food for survival. They needed to fight to get the nutrients they needed to live. Nature is a life-and-death struggle. We too, are involved in that struggle, but sometimes we are so far removed from it that we need a reminder.

To end on a cheerier note, nature is also full of beauty; forms cultivated to please the eye or the other senses. I'm including some pictures of our trip to the aquarium. I became absolutely obsessed with orchids while there, and my husband finally had to remind me that there was more to see than flowers. Namaste!