Three Little Birds

This time of year, the Carlon family welcomes a regular visitor to our house, well, to the door of our house. We call her mamma bird and every year she builds a new nest in the wreath that hangs on our front door. She builds these wreaths twig by twig and takes her time until, eventually, it becomes the perfect sized little home for her soon to be babies.

It makes me wonder, how does she know how to do this or where to come back to every year? It's not like birds go through some formal education process where they sit through hours of classroom education followed by a practicum. No, they are born knowing how to do this; it is how they are wired.

I know nature vs. nurture is an ongoing debate around human behavior; what are we born knowing vs. what is it that the process of socialization teaches us. Are we born with a blank slate and does society corrupt us or are we hardwired to be one way or another? Certainly we are more complex than the three little birds who just hatched on my front door, but maybe we need to get back to basics.

Now that these birds have hatched, I look out my front window and see mamma bird searching for food on the wet ground and see her fly back to the nest to feed her little babies. She's doing what she's been programmed to do to ensure their survival.