Before I got obsessed with Divinity – Original Sin 2, I was already struggling to keep posting blog entries as noted in a couple of the last entries I posted. I couldn’t get in synch with Nature last year.
I’ve birded long enough to know when I should be somewhere to get the best shots, but somehow I couldn’t arrange the rest of my schedule to be there when I needed to be.
We missed most of the Spring Shorebird Migration because we had another commitment. We went to Bear River in Utah but were there too early, and my favorite birds were nowhere to be found. I got some photos throughout the year that I liked, but they seemed few and far between.
The final straw came when we visited Santa Rosa in late summer and seemed sure to get some good pictures, but our plans were ruined by smoke from fires in Northern California and Southern Oregon. The air was so unhealthy we didn’t leave the house for most of the week we were in Santa Rosa, we couldn’t visit Bodega Bay, and we couldn’t drive back up the coast and through the Redwoods like we usually do. In a good year that might not have bothered me too much, but last year it just seemed like the last straw.
Luckily, a long break, Winter, as it were, leads to Spring, and Spring leads to new life and new opportunities. It may not be Spring in Tacoma, but, despite the rain, it does seem like Spring here in Santa Rosa and I’m hoping to get back on track.
I did manage to get a few shots in our backyard during our recent freezing spell when water became hard to find and I filled the birdbath with hot water every hour or so during daylight hours.
We get Juncos in our yard daily so I tend not to photograph them, but I liked this shot I took while waiting for a Varied Thrush to get some water.
Meanwhile, another infrequent visitor showed up, a Spotted Towhee.
Finally, patience was rewarded, and the rarely-seen Varied Thrush appeared,
and posed long enough to get an even better shot.
I plant flowers to attract Hummingbirds in the summer, but I blow the leaves back into the flower beds in the Fall and wait until Summer to finally rake them up because the Towhees and Varied Thrushes feed among the debris. It’s nice to be rewarded for simply being in tune with Nature.
Love reading your season of being in the dessert, so to speak. This post represents the seasons of life as much as the seasons of the year.
Your photographs are beautiful and your knowledge helpful. You bring birding to life for me.
I’ve been out of sync too with nature. Threat of adolescent suicide, divorce, and surgeries disrupt the usual flow – much like the smoke from fires that make the sun hazy or invisible.
Yet, like spring, the sun has risen every day. Each dawn is an opportunity to see or feel something new.
These birds and your photos remind me and bring the simple joy and beauty of nature. It just takes pause, breath, and an openness to notice.
I appreciate the skill you have cultivated in your ability to patiently wait and notice nature while cultivating the soil so your flowering plants attract the hummingbirds of the next season.
Do, keep writing.
Be, present 🤗
LIfe certainly has its up and downs. My divorce, followed by the subsequent 140-mile separation from my kids was almost unbearable.
I finally discovered Yoga and meditation so I could manage to go to sleep at night. In later life I’ve adopted Tai Chi and Qigong to help control my anxiety, not to mention birding.