In the beginning of February of this year, Great South Bay Audubon Society received a donation from The Ladies Auxiliary of the Bayport Fire Department in memory of Grace Shand. Her name was not familiar to me, so I scanned through our membership list and asked some people if anyone knew her. No one did.

Then we got another – and another – and another. I didn’t want to impose upon a grieving family, but wanted to know more about this woman who loved nature enough that her friends were donating to us in her honor. So, I wrote to her daughter, Heather.

Heather graciously responded to me with a beautiful letter which told the story of how her mother loved nature, especially birds and flowers. How, as a child, she remembers her mother waking her in the middle of the night to go outside and see an owl hooting in the big pine in their yard or to go over to the neighbor’s house to see a night-blooming cereus. What memories Grace bestowed upon her daughter!

In later years, Grace was a backyard bird watcher from her apartment, sharing her sightings with Heather, who set her up with feeders– red breasted and white breasted nuthatch, chickadee, cardinals, goldfinches, house finches, downy and hairy woodpeckers, junco and even a rose breasted grosbeak a few times in May. How excited was I when I had my first backyard rose breasted grosbeak this May!

Grace’s friend, Pam Raymond, shared with her about Brookside. Heather decided to list Great South Bay Audubon as a place to donate to in her mother’s honor.

We have received donations in the past several years in memory of several people whom we have loved and who loved birding and nature. It is really an honor for us to have the opportunity to be stewards of Brookside County Park and to protect and nurture a little corner of this planet. This time of confinement has been a respite for nature. It seems the birds are more vocal and visible. Maybe that is because we are quieter and less infringing. Although these months have brought some sorrow along, I hope that they have also brought some new insight and thoughtfulness as to just how precious life is – all life – not just a self-serving one. A life that serves nature does serve man.

Never underestimate how much that forms a child’s heart.

Photo credit: Alan Lenk