For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed

Romans 8:19

One of the (many) things I love about this church and this community is how people share their enthusiasm and invite us in. Dinner, lunch, golf, history lectures, plays, the symphony, the bird sanctuary, meeting friends at a party, meeting their new dog – people just want to share.

Monday morning I was invited to meet some more birds. “Bring your camera,” Ben said, “this might be a good photo opportunity.”

Well these birds are Purple Martins, and they aren’t exactly the sitting still and saying “cheese” kind of birds!

Purple Martins don’t even slow down to eat; they feed on flying insects in the air. They swoop like swallows, they climb like rockets, and they do stunts like the Naval Aviation Blue Angel exhibition team.

“Look, there are three of them now,” Ben said. By the time I wheeled my Nikon around into shooting position they were in the next county. And back.

Apparently these little guys return to hang out at the same gourd house every season. They winter in South America and also spend part of the year in Canada. I’ve seen them in motion so I’m guessing they do the trip in somewhere around 30-minutes!

The people who maintain the little Martin houses are known as – get this – “Landlords.” Landlords get very attached to the birds and can often tell them apart. “Oh, here comes Arthur,” they might say when the birds come careening in and, “that’s Cecil right behind him.”

The distinctive song – chattering – of a Martin in flight has been described as a mixture of chortles and gurgles, beginning with descending notes and ending in a twitter. It is delightful.

This particular bird condo is at a Tarboro park named Indian Lake. It’s a lovely serene spot, and also a great stopover location for some visiting geese.

Just being out there, talking with Ben about his birds (he is the landlord) and the delicate balance of life in this ecosystem, made me hyper aware of the world as this remarkable, complex, biodiverse ongoing experiment in trust.

The experiment is God’s. We are the primary subject of the study. And I am quite certain that we are making a huge mess of it. God gave us as a gift, a responsibility, a trust to keep. And we are letting so many of these beautiful creatures down.

I hope, through my clumsy efforts at photography and prose, that I am at least raising some awareness of the wonder of it all.

I think it all goes back to what we were talking about the other day – humility. Less of the hubris, please and so much more in the way of humility. Humility means understanding our place in the great scheme of things and serving those around us. Hubris shoves everything else aside because we believe, “it’s all about me/us.”

So it is good to see someone like Ben taking care of these fragile Purple Martins. I don’t think he has named them – yet – but I’d like to think that the birds are quite clear about who he is, and quite grateful too. I know I am.

Glad to be here for a season, learning something new every day – DEREK

I tried to capture the Martins in flight….