Poems and Thoughts    by Frank Maurer

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Revelations of a Birdfeeder Assumptions Corrected For forty years, my small farm has been a wildlife refuge. Among the passerines which flock to my habitat restoration, Are the striking (for a sparrow!) White Crowned And its companion, the duskier Golden Crowned. For years I observed the two species foraging together. It appeared that the White Crowned greatly outnumbered the other And I assumed the Golden was the subservient one, Then, I added a small feeder to my window And, oh, what was revealed when competition For seed in a small space was created. My assumption that the White Crowned was dominant Was shattered by observing the actual dominance Of the Golden, constantly defending its feeding position! I extrapolated this revelation to other life observations. How wrong we all at times might have been in life With assumptions which have led us to totally incorrect conclusions. Frank Maurer April 2021