Shy spotted fawns nibble at my grass and warm their fur in the morning sun after a cool night in the woods.

Two does, two yearlings and three fawns lazily find breakfast in the meadow. Then something startles a fawn, and suddenly they all skitter into the woods.

The same scrawny fox I saw last week lopes into my yard and spends about five minutes hunting for his meal—an unlucky mouse. The fox repeatedly leaps up in the air in order to pounce heavily on the ground—perhaps to startle the mouse out of hiding?

I thought I heard the fox make some interesting sounds during all this, and one cry reminded me of a lost fawn. This video illustrates just a few of the many different fox vocalizations.

FOXY VIDEO

And while I stood stone still at the edge of my deck watching this drama, a hummingbird repeatedly tried to extract her breakfast from the large red blossoms on my wild, floral dress! As I stood between a hanging fuchsia and a verbena basket, I must have just seemed like another item on the menu. If she ever figured out I was human, she didn’t seem to care and continued to flit from geraniums to petunias to me.

We all nurture something or someone else.

CONTEMPLATIONS

• What’s your role in your family food chain?
• Are you provided for, or are you the provider?
• Do you blend in, or do you stand out?
• Do you need to nurture yourself more?

Meet other animal allies here.