Reflections, Equinox to Solstice

It was Easter just a few months ago and I have had a story in my mind and it's about families. My wandering paths of early morning walks prove The Urban Wild seem to be held by this endearing rhythm of life loves bond.

It started with a photo of Anna's Humming Bird nest and the clutch within the nest and how they grew within such a short period of time the baby birds were standing on the sides of the nest then they were gone. I posted the photo on Easter, and it's just this amazing web of woven twinnings of gossamer and lichens that could only hold a mother and two eggs the size of two M&M peanut candies. 

In the beginning we could not see the clutch of birds beaks. There we're only the tiny fledge of feathers looking into the nest. Now we can see the baby hummers beaks sticking out like black needles in fluff, and it became a daily ritual to see how they matured over the next few weeks.

The mother bird is here guarding over them however, she was not frightened by our curiosity. She just continued to be close by but not alway's on the nest. Sometimes she would just fly off to a nearby branch and chirp. 

The difference between these images is less than two weeks, and these babies are about to fly soon. However the wild is different, there is this space of solace but it's also a place of brutal finite danger, the Crow's and Stellar Jay's are alway's patroling unguarded nests.  

So these are the images of the Equinox, they are all about life and the cycle of parenting even The Urban Wild live to see their young grow within a healthy environment. 

The Annas Hummingbirds did fly and it was less than a week that a different Mother bird laid two more eggs in the same nest and the cycle was to be continued. However that was not the case, the new mother was not as careful to guard her nest, and within a few days, the nest was raided by the Crows or Jays. We were shocked that the new eggs were gone, some of my other friends were so disappointed to not see the new clutch of hummers grow. I have a colleague that's a biology professor a University of Washington, he assured me that this was part of the diverse life-death cycle of the Urban Wild. He said a new mother could have a new nest built in a few days and the cycle would continue.  

The Summer Solstice brings warmer weather and different Urban Wild families are within the range of my paddle-board and camera. 

I was paddling a few days ago and a family of Canada Geese was coming straight to me, so I laid down on my board and waited for them to catch the current to me. I believe they will stay a certain distance from me as the current brings them in. The light changes and as they pass by, I get this reflection that I find to be one of my favorite dimensional aspects of photography.  

So the Canadians continue to drift with the current and I put my camera away. 

Then I start to reflect in a different way. Why would anyone under any circumstances separate families from each other? We live in strange times and between political parties, religious leaders and the common man-woman relationship of love, it has never happened in my life, and especially not in this country.  This is not normal and to have this type of brutal unforgivable practice, part of our governments idea of how they treat families by tearing them apart from the ones that they love most.

Apathy is never a badge of honor, but disease of the heart and mind, leaving the a soul as smoke from a lost flame. It makes me wonder that maybe a brushed message of not caring is more a silent cry of abandoned hope and love, for that we can only feel empathy.

The refections through the looking glass are not moments in a parade of life's love lost or found, but more on how we cared for the love we have and keeping it close.