Since then the bullfinches have been careful in the nesting season, keeping to the woods far away from human danger, occasionally venturing out to eat weeds and swing from meadowsweet around the ponds. It was a pleasure, this spring, to see their young from time to time nearby briefly, before they returned to the safety of the thickets, and I was able to photograph one of them before she flew away. Next day, I found her body under the kitchen window.
Her brief life had been a happy one, and her death would have been quick and painless, preferable to being taken and stripped with a still-beating heart by a sparrowhawk or infected by disease, but it was another poignant reminder of the precariousness of bird life.
There was nothing I could have done to prevent the accident, but I felt irrational guilt that my home had brought about her end. It happened two days ago and every day since then I watch anxiously as her siblings return to feed, relieved when they move away and out of sight. I do not want to lose another bullfinch family, or any other creature, if I can help it and if it is their wish to live.
Although remembered by me, the young bullfinch will be forgotten by her parents and siblings by now, for nature is pragmatic and accepting of the vagaries of life and death; even if only one juvenile bird survives in a nest, the nest has been successful, and it is likely that the pair of bullfinches of some years ago and of this year will have bred and will breed again, making up for their losses.
Furthermore, just as trees support each other biologically, energetically and spiritually, so too do all the different species of birds and animals that make a place their home. They have a shared soul connection: the hurt of one of their number is known and helped as far as possible by the others, and the death of one of their number is a form of ascension and later reincarnation that strengthens them all.
The bullfinch, so beautiful in her new feathers, who chose to die here in a very specific way, lives on. I wonder if I will see her here again? I believe I will. We never really lose what we love.
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so sad claire, reminding us of how fragile & short life can be in nature.but life goes on unhindered. Two friends of mine now have cancer & one is dying and the other we dont know as yet, its early days & the operation was cancelled last week. another reminder that we dont know whats going to happen in life & how long we have here & maybe to try to live so present that nothing bothers us! At least not with the often trivial events I am sometimes sidetracked with..A lesson here from the birds and nature!
I am so sorry about your friends, Sat Kartar, but it helps slightly to remember that, like the bullfinch, we choose our time and way to die - and that everything returns.I wish them, and you, all that is good. Thank you.