I used to put a flat-topped stone in the notch between the trees but of course the trees continue to grow around the platform, embedding the stone into the bark. It doesn't make sense to me to honor one life form by damaging another, so now I put the stone platforms off the ground but still touching the Grandparents.
Although the larger bird wearing soft grey feathers dusted with yellow might be a female Brown-headed Cowbird, I don't try and spend too much time in identification and study.
The smaller one with the long beak and and mottled breast feathers is certainly more unusual, but both deserve my respect and attention, rather than my using them as a way to satisfy curiosity.
As I lay their bodies on the stone, I breathe on each one five times, because I am honoring the loss of their breath through each of the five layers of time, which I learned about from Martin Prechtel.
I learned from a First Nations man here on Cortes Island that Cedar is also a Grandparent tree and brings forgiveness, and so I "bury" the birds under cedar brackets that I find on the forest floor to say I am sorry that animals in my care cut short their lives.
Because I understand that all animals and birds know with vision and feeling more than with thought, instead of a prayer made of words I try and send the most beautiful sky I can imagine. A prayer of lifting off.
