Lessons from a mockingbird

You may have read some of my other posts where I talk about how God always teaches me little lessons or shows me things if I just pay attention to His creation.

My husband and I, now that we are getting older, love to watch the various birds that frequent our back yard.  Since he is a fishing guide, the pelicans follow him home, but his favorite is a little blue heron that comes to visit every afternoon.  If the little guy is fortunate, he gets scraps as the fish get cleaned.

My preference though are the cardinals.  Since they live here year round, I always keep food in their feeder.  There are several pairs that live in the dense mangroves across the creek from us, so you can find them almost any time of day near the feeder in the winter and spring.  In summer, it seems like they are a little more elusive.  I am sure the intense heat has something to do with that.

Recently, I have become acquainted with (the best I can anyway) with a fat little mockingbird.  She sits on our fence or atop the stalks of red berries on our Christmas palm tree.  The photo below only shows one stalk and there are currently four on this tree and two on the tree in our front yard.  My point being, she has plenty.

She pecks at the berries until one falls to the ground and then she quickly grabs it and runs into a more sheltered area with it.  She constantly watches for other birds and chases mostly black birds and mourning doves away all day long.  They aren’t allowed to land within about a five foot perimeter of “her” tree.  Don’t tell me it isn’t fun to bird watch, although my youngest teases me about the pleasure I derive from my birds.

Anyway, to get to my lesson.  The other day, as you can see in the video above, she had her berry and was enjoying a feast.  If you look closely you can see a cardinal hiding in the bush behind her and a black bird walks by behind it.  The cardinal and the black bird are merely after the bird feeder which is to the left of the greedy little mockingbird.  They do not appear to be remotely interested in her berries and they don’t eat them when she isn’t around.

However, you can see in the video at the very end, she chases them away.  She wastes effort getting stressed, and chasing them away from what is hers.  She covets her berry and thinks everyone wants what she has.  She misinterprets their motive and gets it all wrong.  Can you see the lesson?  Aren’t we like that sometimes?  We think everyone wants what is ours and we get in defensive mode and get our blood pressure up for naught.  And for what?  There were enough berries for everyone and no one else was interested in them anyway.

I love God’s little lessons in nature and I love to watch His glorious creatures living out their roles in His magnificent creation.