The regular ritual of feeding the birds inspired this latest set of pictures.
Several years ago we raised guinea fowls from eggs found in the Lucerne lands, and rescued them before the tractor went over their nests. We set them under broody hens, which successfully reared the large clutches of young guineas. When they grew up, they re-joined the wild flocks that live around here. But they always return when they get hungry, and many of the other weavers, sparrows and doves have enthusiastically taken to the daily feeding and arrive in large numbers to mingle with the guinea fowl.
A quote from the Evangelical priest and scholar John Stott who wrote a sermon series called; “The Birds our Teachers”.
“Jesus himself referred to birds in his famous Sermon on the Mount. According to the old English version he said ‘consider the fowls of the air’, but in basic English this is a command to ‘watch birds’. When Martin Luther, the great 16th century reformer, got to this verse in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he became quite lyrical. He wrote: ‘Let the little birds be your theologians … We have as many teachers and preachers as there are little birds in the air’. So I’ve sometimes said in rather jocular fashion that I’m developing a new science called ‘orni-theology’, – the theology of birds.”
Overheard In An Orchard
Said the Robin to the Sparrow
“I would really like to know
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the Sparrow to the Robin
“Friend I think that it must be
That they have no Heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and me.”
–Elizabeth Chaney – 1859
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