Giving Thanks

"If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature; and the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always at hand, is nature."

~ John Burroughs

Something New

Field Sparrow - Spizella pusilla

A foggy Friday morning. Binoculars cleverly harnessed. Camera slung shoulder side. Pen and waterproof notepad in hand.

Lengthening my inhalations and exhalations, I gaze out onto a small pond. The tall marshy green and brown reeds contrast with the dark unbroken surface of the water. The stillness is mesmerizing. Just how I like it.

Softly walking, I listen. Lured by sounds, I push further, into undergrowth. A dainty deer trail emerges and I find myself next to a body of water I've never noticed before. Surrounded on all sides by dense foliage, I feel a sense of complete isolation. Bird sounds are all around me now; I firmly grasp my binoculars as I whip my head around trying to see them all. Then I gasp. A black-crowned night heron -- a lifer!

Species List

Pied-billed Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Black-crowned Night Heron*

Black Vulture

Accipiter sp.

American Coot

Killdeer

Least Sandpiper

White-winged Dove

Mourning Dove

Belted Kingfisher

Eastern Phoebe

Blue Jay

American Crow

Carolina Chickadee

Carolina Wren

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

European Starling

Chipping Sparrow

Field Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

Northern Cardinal

Common Grackle

House Finch

House Sparrow

Dew

Glittering across the landscape,

like 10,000 tiny fallen stars.

Clinging, clinging, clinging.

Like time and life, evaporating.

Dew drenched web

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Dendroica coronata

Sleepy Orange - Abaies nicippe

A feeling.

Red-bellied woodpecker perched.

Red-bellied woodpecker fleeing.

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I did yoga twice yesterday. I haven't had to do that in a while. I know when I need to. Something inside me commands it. And I listen.

As I write this I hear soothing acoustic guitar chords floating up from a nearby patio. This is the first time I've heard this here. I enjoy it. I'm doing yoga to the sound of the music now. And somehow this feeling is identical to being sheathed in nature, enveloped in trees and grass, covered by water.

Rich

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things

which he can afford to let alone."

~ Henry David Thoreau

Isn't it interesting how nature takes only what it needs, and nothing more.

It doesn't resist. It flows effortlessly.

I respect that.

White-tailed deer

Lincoln's Sparrow