On our balcony we can regularly observe little birds – turns out they are house finches. The male species have nicely colored red heads. Previously I saw them sitting on the railing hopping around and then taking off again. This time I was observing them from a different angle, and I noticed that they are landing on the railing but later fly up a little higher to slip into a space behind the ventilation grating of our neighboring apartment. This grating is mounted flush into the glass facade of the building. Paying attention and perhaps also given the time of the year I noticed later that they were also carrying grass and other materials in their bills, landing first on our railing and transporting these items also up to that grating. This observation solved one question I wondered about – namely why there is so many of these birds and why do I see them flying so high up. If every venting shaft can host one bird family, then we have plenty of nesting space to offer in our building. When the birds leave the area behind the grating, they dive off the blades and fly away. It struck me that when they raise their young ones and get them to the stage of flying – it means that the tiny birds that have never flown in their life will have to jump of that very same spot into free fall and trust their innate ability to fly the very first time around. I knew that they have that ability (Biology 5th grade perhaps – or a pointer from my father?) but thinking about that it felt like I was relearning something that I already knew. It happens more often than we think that things that are known and kind of obvious deserve reconsideration as to their meaning or magnitude at various points in our life . Almost all human skills are learned – over time with gradual ramp in the magnitude of the challenge. Of course, at one point in a journey one must overcome a threshold – if you want to ski a black trail one day will be the first, where you must kick yourself off down the slope! Yet practically speaking one arrives at that point after having practiced many days starting on the green ones, progressing to the blue trails and eventually standing up there at the black sign.
Needless to say, that I could not see myself jumping from such a height without having taken many small steps prior.