Yesterday afternoon Robert Edwards, Ann, and yours truly enjoyed a bird treat in our back yard. It was a good and easy look at MOURNING WARBLER. If you didn't see it spelled out one could easily think we saw a MORNING WARBLER! Isn't it interesting that MOURNING and MORNING sound exactly alike and yet they are quite different? This little guy with a sad name is draped in blue grey over his head and neck. He wears a black bib. There is a splash of soft yellow down from the bib to the tail. He prefers dense undergrowth.(That tells you something about our unmowed back yard) The Mourning Warbler doesn't fly across the Gulf of Mexico on his migration. He sticks to the land and comes up through Mexico. It is a slower and longer trip so he is a late migrant. His destination is the northern US and the Appalachians, into Canada and the Yukon. No wonder he is in mourning! That is a killing trip for a little bird to round-trip from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia!
There are people around us mourning each day. They may not be wearing a grey shawl or a black bib, but sorrow has hit their lives through the loss of a loved one, marriage, job, health, home, or other things. Jesus offered these simple words: "Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.". You and I can be a part of that comforting process. It is a duty and privilege to offer comfort when there is mourning. It blesses the giver as well as the receiver.
