Basking in Backyard Beauty

A profusion of springtime flowers attract a butterfly to the greenspace behind our backyard

My father-in-law Bob is not a big fan of change. Nor technology. So when he recently visited our Florida home with a new Samsung smart phone in his hand, I figured we were all in trouble 🙂

His wife Sheila had ‘strongly encouraged’ him to replace his decade-old flip phone and join the 2015 tech party. He had reluctantly given in, but after two weeks with the new ‘smart’ device he was ready to chuck it into the nearest lake. For the first few days of his visit we’d try not to start laughing in front of him as the cascade of cursewords would flow when the device rebelled against his every intention.

But eventually I noticed a change beginning.

Bob had taken to sitting outside in the early mornings on our small backyard patio, and one day when I joined him with my much-later-morning mug of coffee in hand, I witnessed something remarkable: he had outsmarted his smartphone all on his own with no input from any of us, and learned to use his new hi-tech device to call in a variety of birds within feet of our back door.

He needed no help in navigating the phone’s web browser, googling for Florida bird calls, and playing those audio clips to get the attention of a gorgeous red Northern Cardinal. Not only that, he had bird identification pictures pulled up on the phone’s sizable screen and was showing us what species of birds were flitting around the brush and trees in the greenspace just beyond our tiny yard. And there was no more cursing!

A stunning red male Northern Cardinal comes within feet of our back door

Soon this spunky 75-year-old was even texting like a pro (something he vowed never to do in this life). And I thought, wow, an old dog actually can learn new tricks 😉

But after some days had passed with me joining my father-in-law on our back patio each late morning for peaceful sessions of listening to the songs and calls of the birds, I suddenly realized that this old dog Bob was actually teaching me, a rapidly aging dog, a new trick. For I had not fully realized until then that my own humble backyard was a view to some amazing beauty and glory waiting to be photographed.

During Bob’s visit I began bringing the Nikon out with big telephoto attached, and experienced great delight in making images of some of the little birds he had called out. Then my wife Wendy joined the fun with her nice photographic capture of a turtle passing by. And after my father-in-law returned home to Oregon I continued spending time in the morning sitting on the patio with camera nearby, waiting for more opportunities to see, enjoy, and capture the majesty of birds in flight and any other critter that might happen across the backyard, including butterflies and lizards.

A turtle takes its sweet time crawling across the grass of our backyard (photo by Wendy Martin)

An anole lizard lounging on our patio displays its eye-catching dewlap

Bob, if you’re reading this, I thank you for your persistence in pushing through the learning curve and finding a use for your new phone that brought us all a lot of pleasure, and for helping awaken me to backyard beauty I had taken for granted.

Sometimes I need to be reminded: slow down, look around, truly see, and savor the everyday glory of our Creator in everyday places…

A Limpkin takes flight off of a dead snag behind our backyard

[all photos in today’s post were taken with a Nikon D7100 DSLR and a Tamron 150-600mm lens]