"Look at the Birds of the Air"

A favorite experience for me living in Congo has been the birds that I wake up to every morning.  We have cats that have kept a lot of them away but the past two years the bird population has increased.  Our cats have dwindled down to one old Grandma cat who would rather just hang around in the house than chase birds outside.
While I thoroughly enjoy electricity, there is an advantage when the electricity is out and the neighbor's generator is off, I can hear the birds in my yard.  I am not a bird expert but we have a great variety and I enjoy both hearing and spotting them.
We have a flock of African Greys that hang out from tree to tree.  They love to squawk and occasionally there seems to be a word or two that comes out as a result of someones pet that has been freed to hang out  with the wild.

A little snack for the cats.

There are also the cordon bleu who brighten up the bushes and grass all around.  Sometimes I think of them as God's ornaments to add color to the world.  At other times I think of them as little snacks for the cats who prey after them.  They make a slight snack and seem to be easy to catch.

Cheering me on as I go for a run!

Then there are the longed tailed brown birds that are related to the birds of paradise.  I believe they are the ones who sit under my porch ceiling and serenade us every morning.
A friendly egret has chosen our wall to reign over year round.  When migration happens the count goes up to around 5 but in the meantime our faithful friend watches as I do my workout in the yard or teases our old cat that she isn't quick enough to catch her anymore.

P.D. always longs to come inside and taste a little cat food.

There are other birds we have seen in our yard.  A neighbor's peacock escaped into our yard once. We have had a Kingfisher and a Heron.  Then there is P.D. (Patricia Desiree was added to the initials after we realized she came to stay).  She blew over the walls of our yard during a storm.  After asking all the neighbors if she belonged to them we settled on the fact that she had chosen us. She has become plump and fat in our yard and enjoys visits from the neighbors' scrawny roosters at times.
As I look at these birds I think of Jesus words, "Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?"  Matthew 6:26 NASB  You can tell by looking at me that I don't need to worry about what I eat but I do need to remember not to worry about each event in my life or my children's needs.  God values us and has given us an amazing world that reflects His glory.  I so enjoy exploring both this world and the scriptures to know Him in a greater way.


Cordon Blues are very hard to photograph so credit goes to the following sight for the cordon blue picture: <dl id="foter-photo-figure" class="wp-caption foter-photo" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136); position: relative; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; overflow: hidden; padding: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-radius: 3px 3px 3px 3px; width: 325px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://foter.com/photo/bloutjie/"><img style="display: block; width: 100%;" class="foter-photo mceItem" src="http://photos.foter.com/109/bloutjie_l.jpg"></a></dt><dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="padding:0;margin:0;"><span style="display: block; float: right;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyper7/6241366578/">hyper7pro</a> / <a href="http://foter.com">Foter.com</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC BY</a></span></dd></dl>