A Gift from a Bird

My job is so stressful that I have been thinking about ways to decrease my stress, especially at work. Today I had lunch in my car. I parked it at the end of the parking lot facing a grassy lawn area with pine and oak trees. It was quiet and peaceful; nevermind that the grass was brown because it's dormant.

As I sat there eating my lunch, I remembered another time long ago, that my sister, my niece (who was a toddler then), and I had a picnic at a park. It was a beautiful Southern California summer day. We spread a blanket out on the grass, got down, and started to eat. We were soon joined by birds; maybe about 6 of them. They wanted some food of course.

I've never thought it was a good idea to give human food to wildlife, but on that day, I threw them some crumbs from the biscuit that I was eating. There was one bird in particular that seemed like it was looking at me a lot. I decided I would see how close the bird would get to me, so I put a crumb not too far from where I was sitting; maybe about 1 meter away. The bird hopped closer and took the crumb. I kept decreasing the distance between me and the food, and within 5 min that bird was eating out of my hand!

A few more crumbs and that sweet little bird had its fill. It looked at me and flew off. A few minutes later it came back, landed very close to me and dropped something on the grass right next to me. It looked at me again and then flew off for the last time. I looked down at what was laying on the grass. I picked it up. It was a piece of pink yarn; about 6 cm in length. It was in perfect condition; it wasn't frayed or anything. What a gift! And from a wild bird! Wow!

I kept that piece of yarn for a long time. I wonder what happened to it...