Tweets, Twitters, And Other Critters

 

Someone asked me recently why I didn't have a Twitter account. I told them that I had enough to handle with email, blogs, and Facebook that already took up a big chunk of my time. Besides, I prefer the real tweeters and twitters, the ones with feathers who sing me awake each morning and entertain me all day long.

The other day I was sitting at my desk staring out of the window at the sky as I usually do when searching for an idea or some inspiration when a sudden movement to my left caught my attention. Suddenly the huge pine tree next store was covered in black spots as a flock of tiny black birds flew in and landed. There was easily a hundred of them and I wondered if they weren't starlings or similar birds, the ones who fly in what they call "murmurations," like when you see a cloud of them wheeling and soaring in the sky in formation like aerial ballet. While I have certainly seen that phenomenon before, I had never seen a flock up close and personal. After what seemed like only a minute or two they took off again. A bunch of stragglers who obviously had been catching their breath in a nearby tree too off after them, followed by one, tiny bird who was struggling to keep up with the others. It only took a few minutes for the entire drama to unfold, but it was both beautiful and mind-boggling at the same time.

I have come to know from years of personal experience that there is nothing I can find in cyberspace or on the cloud that can compare with what Mother Nature has to show us. Watching those birds working together in perfect unity only showed up the glaring differences between animals and humans. There wasn't any in-fighting between two sides of the flock, like two political parties, about which way to go or what in-flight dance they were going to do. They just followed each other and it all got done, with great majesty, I might add. Whether it's a flock of starlings, or geese heading south, or beavers working together to build a dam, or a colony of ants carrying food back to the others, nature knows how to work in harmony with each other to get things done for the good of all. Perhaps we need to pull our eyes away from the news and digital tweets and start looking for answers outside of our windows. Mother Nature, it seems, already has a handle on things. She has, after all, had a few million years head start. It would be nice if we could give that kind of head start to the next seven generations of humans as well.

And so it is.