Wonderful Wildlife

Darling Deer

The animals around us are enjoying springtime (wet, though it be!).  I took these pictures of deer browsing on the hill behind our house... from the kitchen window!  Often times during a meal, these two deer walk past our dining room windows on their way down the hill.  They then cross the road and go down to the creek for water.  On the way, they nibble daintily at the clover and other wild greens and flowers growing along the driveway.  They move so gracefully and swiftly, and their eyes are always wide open as if they are seeing wonderful things for the first time.  They are awesome creations of God!

 

Crazy Crow

I never knew that a crow could feel the need for a sidewalk of his own, but this particular crow obviously does.  In the mornings, often while we are eating breakfast, he flies from the trees across the street and lands on our deck railing.  He marches importantly down the railing, passing the French doors in the dining room, rounding the corner, passing the windows, then hopping down and flying away.  Why?  I have no idea, but he apparently feels the need for a sidewalk!

 

Squirrelly Squirrels

Perhaps they've been drinking red Kool-Aid... I just don't know.  I have never seen squirrels so silly before!  Squirrelly Squirrel #1 was hilarious.  Mom and I were outside the front door waiting for our ride to Ladies' Bible Study.  In front of us was the driveway, and our big ol' van.  Toward the nose of the van, up the hill, was a grey squirrel (called a grey-digger around here).  He was jumping here and jumping there and scampering in circles and absolutely cutting the craziest capers!  We were delighted and were thoroughly enjoying watching him.  But then it got better.  Running down the driveway, he sprang and climbed halfway up the porch post about 8 feet away from us!  He then jumped off and ran even closer, getting onto the rough stone siding below the living room windows and peeking in.  After he bounced off, he froze, looked up at us for the first time, and took off like a grey streak.  He ran under the van and jumped up into the underside somewhere near the front axle!  Mom and I simultaneously said, "Oh, no!"  But he jumped back out and ran up the hill, disappearing into the foliage.

Squirrelly Squirrel #2 had obviously been watching a certain Crazy Crow.  One morning during breakfast, Aimee said, "Hey everybody... look!!"  There was a squirrel on the deck railing!  It was sitting still, looking around alertly.  (Probably wondering if the crow was about to show up.)  We opened the curtains on the French doors and watched in delight as the squirrel raced down the railing.  It's very difficult to jam 8 curious faces in a 10-inch-wide window.  So it must have looked either perfectly comical or perfectly terrifying to the squirrel to see us all trying to watch as he rounded the corner and jumped onto the deck, disappearing underneath the wooden bench.  And it was hard to say which was cuter (if that's a word!); the squirrel, or Elizabeth squealing and pointing!

 

St. Francis?  Not really.

Once again, this animal happening begins during a mealtime.  The day before yesterday while we were eating lunch, I saw this shape flick past the arched window over the kitchen door.  Then a profound THUNK!  The shape then flew past the other two side windows.  I looked out the French doors behind me and saw and very small bird (perhaps a little smaller than a common sparrow?) sitting very still on the deck railing.  Putting two and two together and coming up with 5x (as usual), I decided the bird must have flown into the window and now had a pretty good headache.  This seemed to be a pretty logical explanation, because when I got up and opened the door the bird didn't fly away.  I walked over to it.  It just sat there blinking dully.  I reached out one finger and began stroking its tiny back!  The bird continued blinking, his mouth hanging open a little so I could see the orange tint inside.  After stroking him for awhile, I remembered that our cockatiel used to love being scratched/rubbed behind the neck.  This bird did too.  He stretched his neck out and leaned into the scratching, closing his eyes.  My family was still sitting at the table watching the whole thing, and I heard my Dad say, "Try telling him the gospel."  He was obviously referring to St. Francis of Assisi.  (BTW- G.K. Chesterton's bio of him is really good!)  I grinned.  I'm no St. Francis, for sure.  But I did talk to the bird some, even a couple little things about praising God and fulfilling His purposes.  To me, the whole thing was like a dream.  I mean, after all, this was a completely wild bird!  After awhile, I decided I'd better go inside and wash my hands.  Paul went out and looked at him, then Anna.  Before she got all the way there, he spread his wings and flitted to the trees across the street.  I guess his headache was gone! 

To me, that experience was even better than getting to revive a downed humming bird by feeding him sugar-water through a pipette!