The Year of Guest Creatures

Just a few weeks ago I posted pictures of a little fawn who had come to rest right beside the chapel entrance to our monastery. Something about our life as contemplative nuns must be drawing the creatures to us this year. The latest is a Eastern Phoebe who crafted her amazingly beautiful nest of straw, leaves and moss less than two feet away from the door to our mud room - a pretty busy entrance and exit. Not only is it so subject to disturbance, it is also, at least to our eyes, very precariously perched on a rather shallow light fixture.

It is impossible to take a photo of the nest with Mama bird sitting on her eggs because the very second she spots an observer as far as twenty feet away she takes off. If the intruder insists on hanging around, Mama takes up her post on a tree in the nearby cloister garden, all the while keeping a nervous eye on her nest.

We have high hopes for the eggs although we cannot see them. Perhaps when the little one hatch, and before they can fly, I will get a photo of their hungry beaks poking out of the nest. We shall see and keep you posted.