When wings, mud, and song met at Pool Pond.
Wildly Pesonable Column
By Lisa Loucks-Christenson
May 5, 2026
There are nights in the sanctuary when the wild doesn’t just surround you—it reaches out to you.
Tonight, I was filming my documentary near Pool Pond, focused on my work, when a robin suddenly flew straight over my head—so close her wings nearly brushed my forehead.
I stopped.
Then she did it again.
Same path. Same urgency. This wasn’t random.
When I reached the pond, she came back a third time—lower, faster, her wings beating with unmistakable intention. She wasn’t startled. She wasn’t warning me.
She was trying to get my attention.
And then I realized what she wanted.
The hose.
Earlier, I’d noticed it leaking slightly, softening the ground into a patch of perfect mud. I hadn’t thought much of it. But she had.
She had been watching.
I walked over, turned the hose on, and stepped back.
That’s all it took.
She immediately got to work—scooping mud, flying off, returning again and again. Focused. Efficient. Determined. What would have taken her hours to gather, I had just made instantly available.
“I just saved you a lot of time,” I said quietly.
Somewhere nearby, my neighbors are getting a robin’s nest—whether they know it or not.
After several trips, she returned again—but this time, she wasn’t working. She hopped into Pool Pond and took a bath, splashing with clear satisfaction.
Then her mate arrived.
He perched in the lilacs and began to sing.
Not casually—but fully, confidently, filling the evening with sound.
And standing there, hose still running, I realized something I had misunderstood for years.
It isn’t the male who builds the nest.
She does.
She chooses the site. She gathers the mud. She shapes the structure. She builds the foundation of their home.
He sings. He watches. He guards the territory.
And me?
Tonight, I turned on the hose.
For a brief moment, I became part of her work—an unexpected helper in a robin’s building plan. Not because I called her in, but because she noticed something I could provide… and trusted me to respond.
That’s what happens in the sanctuary.
If you pay attention long enough, the wild will begin to include you.
Even if all you’re really doing… is turning on the water.
Lisa Loucks-Christenson is an investigative journalist, author, photographer, illustrator, and Christian ministry worker based in Rochester, Minnesota.
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