Reflections on a Jane Goodall Clip ETC

I have looked at the video clip posted above on a number of occasions. One of my take-aways upon viewing it was to confirm my belief that animals have deep feelings. Another take-away that I learned from this clip is the importance of my letting go of avian creatures, whom I've helped, by creating a safe environment for them in my rooftop urban (NYC) garden (pictured below in an image taken by Juan V this summer).

But before I discuss the birds who visit my place, let me backtrack a bit. When I first started speaking out in cyber-land in 2009, my intent was to give voice to the flora growing in my garden.

I did this through a number of blog entries here on Blogger. If you look at the labels posted on the righthand side of this blog, you find a selection of names for various flowers, herbs, ornamental grasses, plants, shrubs, succulents, trees and vines. Clicking on any one of the topics will lead you to a number of entries that I wrote on a given flora type. In many cases, my entries were from the perspective of the flora being featured. I have also blogged about the aforementioned topics on tumblr. That venue does not have a labels feature for my tumblr template. You will need to enter the topic that you are interested in within the search field. 

In addition to my giving voice to flora through blogging, I have produced a number of garden-themed movies which can be found within my Vimeo Library. A number of these movies are narrated by members of the flora community. Moreover, I am active in representing the needs of those in the flora world through my postings on Twitter and Facebook, as well as through my pictures that are on my Pinterest Boards and Instagram. However I confess that I'm much less active  — as of this blog entry — on Instagram!

In any event, during the summer of 2012, three years after my doing this for the flora community, Cam, a female cardinal (pictured below) began visiting my garden. She can be seen in the pictures below which were taken during the years between 2012 and 2016.

It was Cam who convinced me to put up bird feeders and to expand my horizons by including the antics of cardinals on all the aforementioned cyber-venues and I complied. You can find content re her bird type by going through the steps I described for accessing content that I have provided for flora on a given venue by looking for her bird type.

Meanwhile, much to Cam's dismay, soon after I followed her advice to place feeders in my garden, other bird types began to come here and they gave Cam and her family competition at the feeders I'd placed there. 

The first two types of birds that visited after Cam arrived were male and female house finches as well as both genders of mourning doves. The mourning doves often fed each other with food they had taken from a feeder. This is also a habit of cardinals.

I have been grateful to provide hospitality for these creatures and I confess that whenever they disappeared for any length of time, I not only missed them; I also worried for their well being. Unlike Jane Goodall, who seemed comfortable with a creature departing to carry on with his or her life, I wanted to devise ways (provide special food or special flora) to entice my avian "friends" to return and to keep me company. It took quite some time for me to live in the moment — as far as the presence of an avian creature in my garden — and to learn to just enjoy them while they were here; and not be sad when they left. But I must say, none of my avian visitors ever gave me a hug, as Jane's creature did with her before departing.

Be that as it may, often when a bird type did leave my premises for any length of time, they did return, and, it seemed they did so with an expectation, or trust, that my place would still be a haven for them.

But I've digressed! The visits from cardinals, house finches and mourning doves were followed by ones from a member or members of the following bird types in order of their appearance: blue jays, sparrows, tufted titmouses, dark-eyed juncoes, chickadees, downy woodpeckers, common grackles, white-breasted nuthatches, rose-breasted grosbeak, pigeons, Baltimore oriole, European starlings and Northern mockingbirds. Cam taught me a lot re all the aforementioned bird types and explained to me how they impacted life in the avian community.

I ultimately included information, pictures and movies of each of these bird types within all my cyber-venues. And, as some of you may know, Cam ultimately convinced me to help her write a series of books that give voice to the avian community.

Our first book, Words In Our Beak, Volume One, (pictured below is available within the iBooks store as well as in Amazon venues) introduces all of the flora in my garden, as well as the aforementioned bird types, and certain insects (including ants, bees, butterflies, and a lone dragonfly) that come here.

In volume one of our book series, Cam goes into great detail about the flora  and insects found here. She also provides an introduction to each of the bird types mentioned above, but only covers the details re certain habits of cardinals, house finches as well as mourning doves. It will be in our sequels that Cam goes into more details of the habits of other bird types that have spent time here.

Cam and I hope to complete volume two of our series during this coming fall, but our work has been stopped from time to time by the accident I had, as well as by the visits of even more bird types: American Gold Finches and American Robins.

The latter  (American Robins) have truly taught me to be grateful for the opportunity to provide a safe place for young birds to spread their wings! This is because an adult American Robin checked out my premises for quite sometime before allowing his/her little one to spend time here in order to learn what to eat (and do this activity safely); as well as how to preen, and to practice in the use his/her wings. The following images show the young robin doing all the aforementioned activities.

Eating while checking out surroundings:

Preening:

Practicing Use of Wings:

This young robin was here for a number of days here, spending long hours at work on his/her survival skills.  And then suddenly the little one was gone. I hope he/she is in a safe place enjoying life; for Goodall's clip, has taught me to be grateful to provide for living creatures and also to be grateful that they feel comfortable enough to pursue their own life in another envtonment; knowing I will always be here should they feel a need to return.

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The non-hardcover version (or versions)  of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold. Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

MY BOOK SERIES

Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.