So Sweet; So Bittersweet

Joy and sadness, relief and regret, today is a bittersweet day on many fronts. 

On one, I returned home last evening from a week across Cook Inlet where I attended a bear-viewing and photography workshop.  The flight home was delayed because of foul weather, and I was hoping—not even secretly—that the weather would continue to be misty and foggy so I could stay there longer.

Second, Pablo the parrot was angry that I left him and scolded screamed at me until I went to bed.   Today, he has almost quit the retaliatory nips when I handle him.  We are best buds once again.

And third, when I got out of bed this morning and looked out the window to check the weather, a newly-fledged tree swallow was sitting on the edge of the deck.   All puffed up in feather tones of gray against the cool temperatures, I suspect it was the end of this tiny creature’s first flight as there is a nest twenty feet away.

I ran to get a camera and returned to the window.   I soon discovered it was the wrong camera with the wrong lens, because the lens wouldn’t focus on zoom.   Again I scrambled to get another camera, as well as a new memory card, and returned to the window just in time to see an adult tree swallow just inches from the baby.

Whether the adult delivered flight instructions or encouragement, I’ll never know, but immediately the fledgling spread one wing, then the other, then the tail, then both wings….and away it went.

Mom?

Okay, I've got this.   Wing and tail.

I'm forgetting something...

Ah., both wings and the tail.   Bye-bye.

I could describe my feelings as schadenfreude, though I am taking joy from my own melancholy, rather than another’s, as I watch this little bird embark upon its life.  Its interval of zooming like a guided missile through my world is all too brief, because  these swallows leave as soon as all the fledglings are out of their nests.

So sweet; so bittersweet.