I am still “coasting” from my week at Bluebell Springs.  It had been such a long time since I had the opportunity to put myself into a virtual wilderness setting that I almost forgot what a joy it is to observe close up the work that God’s creatures are carrying on every minute of every day while we putter around in our cars from work to home to the store  to restaurants and to whatever else we do.  While I am back in the office, a part of me is still celebrating the wonder of creation in that special place.

I was especially taken by the birds this time.  Two families of geese with goslings born two weeks apart were fattening up on the lawn and on the special treats Jim tosses out each evening—so he and Bev can watch the fascinating interactions among the geese, the ravens, the Steller’s jays, the cowbirds, the red-winged blackbirds, and the sparrows as they compete for food.  A family of mallards has also taken up residence in their refuge too—drawing the attention of a mink that has been drooling over the ducklings.  Eagles patrol the shoreline as well, but none came in for a meal of tender bird flesh while I was there. Fortunately the goslings are all big enough to be almost beyond the capacity of raptors to handle—besides being diligently guarded by very protective parents.  Jim and Bev feel they could almost write a book now on goose parenting, by which they have been profoundly impressed.

The swallows, however, drew my attention the most.  Two species have found a home at Bluebell Springs: the violet-green swallow and the barn swallow.  They do not know where the violet-greens are nesting, but there is no doubt where the barn swallows are nesting: all over their buildings.  Jim has to keep washing off the mud daubs near their windows since they learned the hard way how easily bird lice will migrate to humans as soon as the birds have fledged.  He has given them the upper reaches, however, so that a number of families now claim Bluebell Springs as home.  And “claim” is the right word.  You do not claim them as your birds; they claim you as their humans.  One evening my brother and I were looking out of two adjacent windows at a barn swallow perched on the roof hardly four feet from our faces.  And it was looking back and forth at each of us with trusting eyes that seemed to say, “Aren’t we all having a great time?”  When Jim went out with his John Deere or I took my car down the beach road we were both accompanied by the swallows feeling as though we were direct descendants of St. Francis.  Ostensibly they were hunting bugs, but it was fairly apparent that they were playing with us, and enjoying it immensely.

In the morning and evening, the blacktail deer joined the birds in celebration of life at Bluebell Springs.  And at the close of dusk, the swallows perched and allowed the bats to take over the night shift of clearing insects out of the air and from the surface of the pond.  Winged life that clearly did not find this place a refuge was insect life!  This fact was highlighted one evening when a foolhardy dragonfly came in to “harvest” bugs with the birds.  It was too big for the swallows, but the red-winged blackbirds knew a tasty treat when they saw it.  Two of them went up like fighter interceptors and then fluttered in the air like ungainly hummingbirds trying to pick it out of the sky.  To the dragonfly’s great relief, it had the speed and agility to manage an escape and a rapid retreat into the firs, hemlocks, and cedars of the surrounding forest.

My experience at Bluebell Springs was a feast for the eyes—and the soul.

See you outdoors!

Dean