Step Outside Your Comfort Zone and Receive Gifts
Clad in my camo snowmobile suit, raspberry-colored knit hat (to warn off deer hunters), red gloves, and boots, I slip my camera strap over my head and emerge from my warm house into the cold, overcast January morning. Ready for bird photography, I scan my front yard and walk toward the field. No birds are in sight as I cross the yard and make my way to the wildflower spiral.
But once I get close to the crownbeard patch, I see birds flitting amidst the trees. Along with the twittering of small birds, I hear the unique call of something that I suspect is a woodpecker. It’s not the typical red-headed woodpecker voice I normally hear in this area, but something about the song says woodpecker. I look around, but see nothing but towhee, cardinals, and sparrows.
Towhee and white-throated sparrows dart back and forth, settling in lower limbs of trees, just ahead of me on the path. I see a couple of chubby–looking towhees – not actually fat as much as fluffed out, trying to stay warm. I train my camera lens on their cute little bodies, hoping to get a photo, but they dart away with my finger still poised over the button.
Color: Downsides and Upsides
I shouldn’t have worn this bright-colored hat and gloves! Raspberry and red alert birds to my presence, even if the rest of my body is camouflaged. Before it flies away, I manage to take a photo of a fluffed white-throated sparrow with its back to me.
As soon as it flees the scene, a beautiful female cardinal poses in a tree directly in front of me. Her back is to me, but then she kindly shifts, giving me a side view of her fluffed crest and signature beak. She’s beautiful. I hold my breath, dial in my lens, and snap several photos while cradling the telephoto in my gloved palm.
The white-throated sparrow returns, or perhaps it’s a new one. I snap a few pictures before everything vacates the area, unwilling to remain with the raspberry-capped woman inching toward them. I head onto the edge of the field and look to my left, spotting a red cardinal, still boasting his bright red summer feathers.
Beyond him is a flurry of sparrows pecking around on the pathway along the edge of the field. I slowly move toward them, and they keep picking for bugs amidst the leaves and dead grasses yet moving onward down the path away from me.
Looking Heavenward
My face icy from the morning chill, I look upward to the sun, a white glow amidst the solid gray sky. The heavenly orb has begun to burn a hole through the canopy, and I feel a glimmer of hope that perhaps it will eventually burn it all away, bringing its warmth and better lighting. Photos rarely turn out well in the gray of winter.
With my eyes looking heavenward, I scan the naked treetops and spot a larger bird in the highest limb. The long beak indicates a woodpecker – probably the bird that made the distinctive, yet unusual call earlier.
I can tell by its beak and outline that it’s not our typical red-breasted or red-headed woodpecker. From the speckled breast, I’d later deduce it to be a Northern Flicker.
After posing for what the flicker feels is a satisfactory number of photos, it takes flight and I capture two more photos of the big bird leaving the treetop.
Again, I look toward the sun’s illumination, and it seems as if it has inched out a bit. Maybe that hole in the clouds is getting a smidgen bigger? Still, not enough warmth to thaw my face. I decide to head back to the house. As I move back toward the wildflower spiral, I hear the call of a red-headed woodpecker. I look up and think, “He’ll be in a dead tree.” I point my lens to the craggily dead top of the oak by the old playground and, sure enough, he sits proudly at the highest point, posing this way and that for several photos.
Why Haven’t I Done What Brings Me Joy?
As I saunter up the hill to the house, I feel the most wonderful contentment in having spent the morning with friends. I calculate it has been months (since goldfinch darted amidst the coneflowers of summer) that I’ve set out with intention to photograph birds. Why have I waited so long?
Probably because the cacophony of summer foliage has blocked my ability to see and photograph the birds in the trees. Now, with winter’s return, I can bundle up in layers to view colorful birds exposed in trees stripped of their clothing, naked and bare.
Next time, I’ll omit my own color and replace the flaming red hat and gloves for something that allows me to walk among my friends discreetly.
A Sense of Accomplishment
I feel a sense of accomplishment in identifying the towhees, sparrows, and woodpeckers. The speed with which I know to look up at a dead tree for an identified woodpecker sound would not have been possible for me not too long ago. Hating the cold, I wouldn’t have even ventured into the chill of winter. Most of my life, winter was my enemy. Now it is my friend. It has taught me that less is more. The “less” (warmth and color) of winter reveals “more” colorful treasures – my bird friends and the loving sun seeking to bring me warmth.
The Gift of Contrast
Step outside your comfort zone, embrace the contrasts, look for more when there appears to be less, and reap nature’s gifts.
This experience has left me to ponder on the gift of contrast. More warm clothes (preparation) make me courageously venture into the cold. I no longer need to hide indoors or limit my adventures because I am more prepared. Less leaves on trees help me more easily see the color of the birds. Less light makes me more grateful for the sun and what it does offer.
The next time you feel like you are experiencing less, look around for what you are experiencing more of. Nature’s contrasts are a gift. By law there is an opposition in all things and that opposition is a gift … IF we are willing to step outside our comfort zones and have eyes to see.
