Earlier this week, on a walk, my friend Jane and I discovered a beautiful little bird, a wood thrush, I think, dead on the sidewalk. There wasn't a mark on the bird. Jane picked it up and put it aside on the grass. Later, a cat was wandering through the yard and I decided to go out and get the bird and put it in a box on the porch until I could bury it.
The next day, when I went to bury the bird, I took a few minutes to take a few photographs. It was so beautiful, every feather perfect. It still had a small bit of what looked like thread in its beak.
Jane, who is a wildlife rehabber, is the one who told me she thought it was a woodthrush, a migrating bird. I learned they make their nests in the deep woods of the eastern U.S. and then fly south to central America in winter. This little guy never made it. But he gave both Jane and I a bit of beauty. And I'm hoping to use its photograph with something I'm working on.
I buried the bird under the grapevine in the yard, the place where our first dog, Tyler is buried. They are both now seeding the earth.
Autumn is here. We are experiencing the beginning of a new season, the ending of summer. Change that envelopes us all. I'm hoping to notice the small things, those bits of beauty like the woodthrush, and appreciate every moment.
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