Look Up
July 1, 2011 | My Jottings
This morning.
Look closely….in the big maple tree outside my office window (click on the photos to enlarge)…
A little further in…
Now you see him…
Breathtaking!
A reminder to me of God’s faithfulness….
For those of you who have an abundance of cardinals in your area, you might understand why a cardinal in our city, on our block, in our yard, in our maple tree, sitting for a long time right outside our office window, is a big deal. If you know us, you know where we live in MN, and according to this map that shows the habitats of the Northern Cardinal, these beautiful songbirds aren’t even supposed to be in our part of the state. And a little south of us, only one or two birds per acre are usually counted.
Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.
My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
Psalm 5:1-3
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It always helps to look up…
Oh, wow! So a cardinal is quite a big bird? Same kind of size as our blackbirds? I’d imagined it more like the size of a bullfinch or chaffinch. Well done for getting those pics! Do you have any kind of national birdwatch thingy like we have here, to record that you saw it?
I’m not sure that I know what size a blackbird is, Ember. A cardinal is about 7-8 inches tall, I believe. About the size of an average hand from wrist to fingertip. I think of them as smaller birds, but of course they’re not as small as our sparrows or chickadees. I think we must have a birdwatch thingy….maybe that’s something Michael and I can take up in future years. 🙂
Lovely! He’s quite magnificent!!
I thought so too, Helen. And their songs are distinctive and so pretty too.
If envy wasn’t a sin, I’d be full of it!
Come and listen to the cardinals and have an iced tea, Deb…. 🙂
Oh Wow! I did the official birdwatching thing here for years. Not counting shore birds, I can average 200 different species ~ if I’m looking. Mostly I’m not. ? I get a huge buzz out of things like this. Lucky you!
200 species – that’s amazing, Ganeida! I count myself blessed to see fifteen different kinds of birds in a few days.
We used to be almost all bush with heath land, open land, rainforest, an *understory* of ferns, & swamp land so we got all kinds. Not so good now we are getting built out. 🙁