POSTCARD #184: Bangkok: The ceiling fan is situated in the open air of the balcony and hasn’t been used in years – the on/off switch sealed with Scotch tape now the birds have claimed the space. When the nesting bird left this morning, I took the photo, standing on a chair with arms stretched up, hands holding the phone-camera at a slight angle pointing downwards at where I thought the nest would be: click… a few tries and I got the picture showing the egg in a fragile little nest, then got down and quickly put the chair away. A very small nest, temporary structure made from stalks of grass individually placed. There’s lightness, like the wind and the air about it.
Shortly after that, the parent bird comes back, sees me watching (it knew I had been up there), looks around with an almost 180° sweep of vision that brings the cranium all the way round as far as it’ll go, then back the other way to where it started and there’s just that little bit of vision obscured by the back of the head. Also some movement on the vertical plane looking up and down with eyes on each side so, somehow choosing which eye to focus with. The head appears to spin around over the top in and in absolutely any direction… it makes me quite dizzy to watch. Bird gets back on nest by sliding through the upper bar of the ceiling fan guard and shuffling in.
Now I’m pacing around the room wondering if this is what it feels like to be expecting a child? The womb is placed outside the body; parent bird feels pecks from a small beak. Tiny beings find there is a way out of their enclosed shell. They learn how to fly quickly and abandon the nest to the monsoon winds, which will demolish it immediately.
Our own life is the instrument with which we experiment with truth. [Thich Nhat Hanh]
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dhamma footsteps 
Proud people-papa to be! Can’t wait to hear the little one has emerged.
Thanks Sonnische, no signs yet and no opportunity to have a peep again, will keep you posted…
We’re all waiting with you!
Yes, so it seems! I don’t know how long it takes, we should know sometime soon I think…
Words like transitory and ephemeral spring to mind.
‘Ephemeral’ is such a nice word, fleeting, momentary; ‘evanescent’ is good too. It’s something about flight itself, a mystery. The only time we really relate to birds is when they’re walking around pecking food whatever and there’s the most important thing in their lives which we really don’t know much about: flying.
Yes. Evanescent is another fine word. I confess to reading your post with my poet hat on and starting to think of our human condition rather than the real life situation that you were describing.
Well, I can understand that. Slipping over the edge of the metaphor and into another reality. I have to edit out all kinds of things before hitting Publish…
Know it well. 🙂
The discarded pieces may be fragments of something not written yet…
🙂
Neat! We had doves that would have nests on the window sills at the school for the multiply handicapped where I worked as a teacher. The students were very interested in the birds and their babies and it was a great learning experience.
Thanks Tom, yes I can imagine how young children would just open up to the experience…
A beautiful journey.
There’s a sense of flght, writing about birds on the internet 🙂
Your stories are soaring. 🙂
Thanks Kimberly for this encouraging comment…