I went outside this blustery morning to get a photo from the backyard of distant Griffith Park in all its windswept clarity. Instead I found my camera focused on this sadness within the boughs of the jasmine tree:

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It’s a poor bushtit at last season’s nest (to the right rear of the frame) in the jasmine tree. Bearing a long piece of string perhaps with which to commence renovations, instead the little bird apparently became irrevocably tangled in the thread and perished, hanging from a branch by it. This happened sometime between yesterday and this morning because in my backyard chores yesterday I noticed nothing more than the abandoned nest and debated taking it down.

To say I was moved to emotion should be obvious to anyone familiar with my love of all creatures. But I guess I was doubly affected by this because the bird died attempting to prepare for new life. One moment it’s scored an awesome piece of nesting material and a few later it became a victim of it. Of course I extricated it from the boughs and plan on burying it in the ground immediately beneath the nest.

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Personally I’m much more a fan of bearing living things, than I am dead ones.

As to why I decided to bring this tiny tragedy to light on such an otherwise glorious day, I did so because this little bird reminded me that life is precious and fleeting in all its forms, and the least I could do was give this little creature’s untimely and unfortunate demise some purpose by passing that truth along, along with my hope that in all our daily toils may we never bear more than we can safely handle.

Rest in peace, little bird.