The Healing Power of Nature
Mindful birding post by Robin Atwood Fidler, Sanibel, FL
Sanibel Island is unique in Florida as over 70% of the island is preserve land. Much of that is the J.N.”Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, but the city of Sanibel and private conservation groups have preserved the rest. Sanibel regulations about development, paving, outdoor lighting, and noise help to make the island a sanctuary for wildlife (and people) and a home or migration destination for countless species of birds.
Looking out my window or sitting on my lanai overlooking water and undeveloped marshland, I can witness birds feeding, roosting, and soaring overhead. The woodpeckers on the palm tree trunks in my yard, the osprey nest in a neighboring Norfolk Island Pine tree, egrets and ibis roosting and nesting in the trees, and a wood stork perched in the tree just yards from where I sit.
Sanibel has over 25 miles of paved bike/pedestrian pathways parallel to the roads all over the island. The path that runs past my house leads through marshland to the wildlife refuge, and my morning run often takes me down that path, a peaceful, shaded half mile connecting the two main roads on the island.
Often, from 2019 when we moved here, through 2021, I would see a very active, older woman, probably over 80, petite and fit, walking the path with her binoculars and water bottle. We became acquainted, and I learned that she lived on a neighboring street, about a mile away. She walked about five miles a day, observing the birds along the path and at the refuge. She pointed out thirteen yellow crested night heron nests along a quarter-mile stretch from my house through the marshland, nests that I had not noticed as I sped by, intent on running for exercise.
Our paths didn’t always cross, so when I didn’t see her for a while, I almost forgot about her.
Last February, Holly Merker came to the J.N. “Ding” Darling refuge to share her experience with mindful birding and her book, Ornitherapy for Your Mind, Body, and Soul, which she co-published with Richard and Sophie Crossley. We chatted after the lecture and I bought a signed copy of her book. I skimmed it, thinking I would get back to it later, and laid it on my coffee table.
Only a few weeks later, I was running on the path when I saw a woman coming toward me being pushed in a wheelchair. As she got nearer, I realized it was my elderly neighbor, checking on the status of “her” yellow crested night heron nests. She told me she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and her daughter had come from New Jersey to stay with her and help her through her illness. Her daughter had driven her as far as my house, where she continued on the path, pushing her mother in a wheelchair.
As we turned back toward my house, I suddenly realized where that book on my coffee table belonged. “Don’t leave,” I said, “I have something for you.” I ran back, got the book, and gave it to her. “Please, park at my house any time you want to see the birds on the trail,” I said.
The year went on, I was busy with family visits, volunteering, travel….life. I never saw my neighbor again and really forgot all about her. I may have asked another neighbor if they had seen her, but I probably assumed that given her age and serious illness, she had passed away.
In September, Sanibel was hit by a category 5 hurricane and a storm surge that covered the island and cut off the only access to the mainland. Most resident were out of their homes for months as damages were repaired and water and power were restored.
When we returned to our home in late December, it was to a very different island. What was once green and lush was now brown and desolate. With piles of rubble along most of the streets, that little path through the marshland became my favorite place to run. The trees that remained were too bare for bird nests, and the marsh that once provided shelter for so much wildlife was now clotted with fallen trees and dead branches.
As I went out each day I looked for tiny signs of life; a palm tree sprouting out of a fallen coconut, wildflowers that I’d had never noticed before under all the foliage, and at last, a few birds. Nowhere near the numbers we had seen before, but they were slowly coming back. I saw an anhinga perched on a tree over the water three days in a row, so I was hopeful that it was building a nest there.
A few days ago, almost a year to the day from my introduction to Holly Merker and Ornitherapy, I was returning home on the path when I spotted in the distance a petite, white-haired woman, walking slowly but purposefully, toward me, past the trees that once were home to so many birds’ nests. I could hardly believe this was the same woman I had last seen being wheeled slowly along the path.
We walked together to the bridge that is a halfway point, where she needed to turn around. She told me her daughter had stayed with her for eight months, through her cancer treatment, and that she was now thinner and weaker, but healthy and regaining strength. Her daughter had returned home in August, and she had been enjoying the first few weeks of being independent and getting back to her active life when the hurricane hit. She stayed through the storm, sitting on her bed, feeling the house shake around her, and watching as a nine-foot storm surge swept through her neighborhood, washing away everything on the ground floor level of her home. Forced to evacuate after the storm, she went to her daughter’s home and did not return for months.
As we walked, we talked about the signs of hope and rebirth we look for every day. We spotted that anhinga, not far from where I had first seen it, and a green heron on a leafless branch squawking a warning. Is it building a nest nearby?
Of course, my friend had medical care and the support of family in her fight against cancer, but the healing quality of observing the birds in nature clearly played a part in that fight. Even when she was too weak to walk down the path lined with nests, she insisted on coming to see them.
When I go out now, I continue to watch for signs of hope. The first Ibis I have seen since September, perched high in a leafless tree, the call of mourning doves, an osprey soaring over our house…but the strongest sign of rebirth that I have seen is my resilient neighbor.
