{"id":2744,"date":"2013-04-29T03:00:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T07:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/?p=2744"},"modified":"2014-02-09T15:06:27","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T20:06:27","slug":"double-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/2013\/04\/29\/double-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Double-duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blind<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One day, a couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with a friend.\u00a0 I was standing over my desk, in front of the window in my office.\u00a0 The newly installed window, I might add.<\/p>\n

I could see out it.<\/p>\n

Of course, I could only see out it in narrow strips, because the Venetian blind was down.<\/p>\n

One of the narrow strips, however, provided an excellent angle on the concrete border of the flowerbed under the window.<\/p>\n

Right there, busily picking at something\u2014I think it was a piece of that stuff that falls off the oak trees in the spring\u2014the pollen\u2014was a female cardinal.<\/p>\n

In and of itself, this is not so miraculous.\u00a0 We have quite a few cardinals around here.\u00a0 They seem to like it by the water.\u00a0 (I know they like water.\u00a0 They love the sprinklers.\u00a0 Several will gather any time the sprinklers are on and swoop in and out of the water droplets with zest.)<\/p>\n

The miracle here was how close she was.\u00a0 I could see every separate feather.\u00a0 The slight reddening on her crest, the red-orange beak.\u00a0 Her little roly-poly body (she was not an underfed cardinal).<\/p>\n

The second miracle was how long she stayed.\u00a0 I usually get to observe a cardinal as it is in the process of disappearing\u2014unless, of course, it’s barreling through water droplets, and even then, it’s a matter of fleeting glimpses.<\/p>\n

But this lady sat on that concrete border, picking at her meal, for several minutes.<\/p>\n

And why?<\/p>\n

Because of the blind.<\/p>\n

Never have I had a clearer demonstration of the value of the hunter’s blind.<\/p>\n

Had the blind been open, had I been standing as I was in front of the window, that little birdie would have been gone almost before I noticed her.\u00a0 Movement behind the window?\u00a0 Bye, bye birdie.<\/p>\n

As it was, she didn’t notice me.<\/p>\n

And I got a miracle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The blind One day, a couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with a friend.\u00a0 I was standing over my desk, in front of the window in my office.\u00a0 The newly installed window, I might add. I could see out it. Of course, I could only see out it in narrow strips, because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[39,180],"class_list":["post-2744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-general","tag-monday-miracles","tag-birds"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2744"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3024,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions\/3024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elainesmithwrites.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}