The Beautiful Blue Wren

THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE WREN

My husband Ernie loves to work in the garden – especially in the front, as the morning sun shines on our north facing home.

We bought in Metung twelve years ago. Holidaying here so frequently meant that inevitably we would settle here one day.

The Blue Wren is Ernie’s favourite bird, next to the Crimson Rosella. He knows each one by its markings and personality. Yes, they do have their own personalities. (Real little characters, some of them!)

Recently there has been a little Blue Wren with a stumpy tail hanging around. Ernie called him ‘Short tail’.

Short tail followed Ernie while he worked in the garden and sat on his shoe when he had a cuppa on the front veranda.

This morning, when we were having breakfast, sitting in the beautiful, East Gippsland winter sun, Ernie saw a little Blue Wren on the driveway. He was not looking very well and was a bit wobbly on his feet. We noticed with dismay that it was our friend, Short tail.

Other Blue Wrens gathered around him as if they were concerned about him and wondering why he couldn’t fly.

I went down and picked him up gently - a tiny ball of fluff in my hand. He was breathing hard, opening and closing his beak.

Then he stopped, stretched out one wing and lay still.

His time had come. My eyes grew misty (over a bird I didn’t even know very well.) Such beautiful colours – indigo feathers under his chin and those distinctive, iridescent, pale blue markings on his head.

I wondered that a God, with so much to do, would bother to bestow such magnificent markings on one so small. Who would know if He had chosen not to?

A bit like us – He knows how many hairs on our head and when each sparrow falls.

I lay Short tail down in a dappled, sunny spot and covered him with an oak leaf.

One little, feathered friend came and visited him to say goodbye. I don’t know how he knew where I had put him.

Such comradeship and compassion between them.

Would that more humans would follow their example.

The End