Leave it be!

Early this morning, I was on the pier and witnessed a most beautiful sunrise.  The wind had calmed overnight making the water as slick as glass.  Remnant clouds from an overnight rain cast incredibly clear reflections on the water.  It was breathtaking and well worth the effort of rising before dawn.

Walking down the pier caused me a bit of concern, though.  There were several Least Terns resting about halfway toward the end.  Nothing unusual about that..there are always birds on the pier.  Still, one worried me a bit.  The bird, which I am assuming was a juvenile since it did not have the dark black, head cap of an adult, was lying prone on the deck.  Hmmm...looked a mite like I had an ill (or hurt) bird on my hands!

Not wanting to frighten the poor bird any more than was necessary, I eased my way closer and closer without making too much ruckus.  The bird stayed put.  It did not fly.  My thoughts were racing to think what I would do with a hurt Least Tern!  I suppose I could call some refuge and report the bird but lately it seems that getting help for an injured animal is nigh on impossible.  Perhaps if the malady is not too severe, I could treat the bird and just release it.  I would check the bird's condition and then decide a course of action.

I eased closer..still the bird did not move.  The other three terns flew to the tops of the pier posts.  They eyed me warily.  I was now only a few feet from the young bird.  It was such a pretty thing!  The softness of its colors intrigued me.  I squatted next to the bird and pondered just how one goes about picking up a tern.  I have held many baby birds and have never had a problem but the one time that I held an adult bird, it bit the stew out of my finger!  A cardinal actually drew blood!  And..that rascal would not let go!  OWW!

About the time I decided to just grab the bird, it let out a squawk that would have waked the dead!  Normally, these little birds do not make such a screeching sound!  With that, the bird jumped up and flew to the top of a pier post.  There it and the other three sent up a cacophony of shrieks!  You would have thought that I was trying to kill the little squirt!

It seems that I was mightily mistaken!  The bird was not injured nor sick!  It obviously was resting and I disturbed it tremendously!  Poor bird!  At least, I did not have to deal with caring for another bird! Just leave it be!  After a bit, the terns settled down and I was able to watch my sunrise in peace.

Least Terns

We had the prettiest Least Terns pay us a visit today. They are the smallest of all the American terns and only weigh in at about one ounce! We always have had a few in the Bay but never as many as I saw today. Perhaps they were trying to escape the areas that are oil-soaked because of the spill in the Gulf or maybe they were last year's brood returning to nest here. They usually nest on the sand beaches but since Hurricane Katrina deposited a goodly amount of sand in my front yard (I seem to have acquired my own personal beach), a single pair have nested here. I will check to see if I find a nest and perhaps should fence the area to keep marauding animals and clumsy humans from damaging any that are there. It is amazing to me that something so tiny and seemingly fragile can withstand the constant headlong diving that these terns do when feeding. I loved photographing the tiny terns and this one in particular seemed to enjoy it, too!

It was another typical summer day on the Bayou. Intense heat and then cooling rains, a summer cycle that never bores me. The rains are welcome even though today's caught me unawares and soaked the laundry that I had hanging on the clothesline. Helplessly, I stood staring through the screen door at water pouring down upon my freshly laundered bedsheets. Then something that Dad used to say flitted through my head.. "Don't worry, it will all come out in the wash!" He would say this whenever there was some daunting problem weighing on my mind...and he was always right. It would "all come out in the wash". The clothes were allowed to "drip dry" with the assumption that they just needed the extra rinsing that the rain provided. Most problems have a way of working themselves out and we all seem to worry far to much about things that really do not amount to a hill of beans. I have in the past and will try again to not fret over things of which I have no control. Although, I will try to remember that I have clothes on the line before the next rainstorm!