Earlier this week we had some serious storms, as Florida is wont to do during hurricane season. In the midst of one of these, after the rain had gone, leaving nothing behind but wind and a yard full of fallen tree limbs, I watched from my bedroom window as a bird perched on our fence. He held tight as the wind whipped his feathers up, rocking him to and fro until the gusts died down long enough for him to fly away again. Hurricanes and other very windy storms have been a part of my life since I was little, but I'd never considered the way a bird weathers them until then. Curious, I asked someone knowledgeable, and I learned something new. This is the beauty of not knowing.
I learned that the muscles in birds' tiny feet contract automatically when they land, forming a tight grip that isn't easily broken - consider how it feels when a bird stands on your finger. They have to let go very deliberately when ready to leave the perch. As for storms, some birds take shelter, some huddle in the trees holding on for dear life, and some are picked up and carried far from home, trapped in the calm of the eye. Now displaced, they've become hurricane birds, left to adapt to their new surroundings once the winds die down. Sounds a lot like life, doesn't it?
This is not exactly relevant, but whenever I talk about the habits of birds (it doesn't happen as often as you might think), I talk about how much I love watching murmurations of starlings. In 2011, a couple of artists in Ireland caught one while canoeing, and it perfectly captures why a murmuration is one of the most breathtaking things you'll ever see. I think you should watch it, even if you've already seen it once or twice or twenty times before:
Birds have some very important things to teach us, I think: when you find yourself in the middle of a storm, hold on tight, find the calmest center, stay close to someone you trust, and adapt to whatever situation you wind up in. That's a bit of advice worth following, isn't it?
