{"id":7653,"date":"2014-01-15T17:17:10","date_gmt":"2014-01-15T22:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=7653"},"modified":"2014-01-15T17:17:10","modified_gmt":"2014-01-15T22:17:10","slug":"goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html","title":{"rendered":"goldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what’s your pleasure?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wren<\/a>The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They’re going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast room window onto the 1-2-3-4-5-6+ feeding and water stations, wondered aloud what this costs us monthly.<\/p>\n

It’s not negligible. \ud83d\ude42 But it’s soooo worth it.<\/p>\n

Afternoons like this, when there’s still a chill out, the soft warm light fills the room, slanting across the table as I try to draw a goldfinch. I might as well be counting breaths, I’m so focused. And mornings, the cool blue sky is just the wakeup I need w\/ a cup of multicultural mocha<\/a>. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

We don’t go to many movies, we don’t have cable TV, we don’t have satellite or dish. Neither of us smokes anymore, and we don’t drink or do drugs. Birds are our splurge — we’ve been known to make detours through Africa just to see the flamingos. But we get almost as excited, these days, when the pelicans take over the sandbars on the Arkansas River.And crows in the pecan tree, or a hawk on the deck rail?\u00a0 Wow. \"pelicans<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m not going to stretch for metaphors — I’m sure you can figure several out on your own. Suffice to say you get to a point where you don’t apologise for your pleasures not fitting what’s expected. Even if it’s ‘only’ runner-up in fastest growing American hobby<\/a>. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

There are good reasons, though, that sitting in the light (or the dawn fog, or the chilly afternoon wind, or even rain!) is a small price to pay to watch even sparrows. And why this fixed-incomer is willing to shell out $$ on thistle, black sunflower seed, suet, & other avian treats. Remember the dinosaur? Welll, when you watch a hawk watch a sparrow, you might be right in the (safer!) middle of Jurassic Park. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They’re going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast room window onto the 1-2-3-4-5-6+ feeding and water stations, wondered aloud what this costs us monthly. It’s not negligible. \ud83d\ude42 But it’s soooo worth it. Afternoons like this, when there’s still…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[311],"tags":[390,1261,1181,1187,262,1247],"class_list":["post-7653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","tag-bird-watching","tag-birds","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-lovingkindness"],"yoast_head":"\ngoldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what's your pleasure? - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They're going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"goldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what's your pleasure? - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They're going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-15T22:17:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/01\/wren-on-suet-feeder.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"goldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what's your pleasure? - Beginner's Heart","description":"The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They're going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"goldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what's your pleasure? - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They're going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2014-01-15T22:17:10+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/01\/wren-on-suet-feeder.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html","name":"goldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what's your pleasure? - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/01\/wren-on-suet-feeder.jpg","datePublished":"2014-01-15T22:17:10+00:00","dateModified":"2014-01-15T22:17:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"The goldfinches have (finally!) arrived. They're going through about a feeder of thistle seed every couple of days. My sister, looking out the breakfast","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/01\/wren-on-suet-feeder.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/files\/2014\/01\/wren-on-suet-feeder.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2014\/01\/goldfinches-titmice-and-wrens-whats-your-pleasure.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"goldfinches, titmice, and wrens: what’s your pleasure?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7653"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7730,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7653\/revisions\/7730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}