Being out n about the past few weeks going nowhere doing nothing, I've been accidentally nature watching. Can't help but notice the bald eagles swooping and soaring around here. One majestic specimen alighted in a tall spruce near my home village. I was driving by, slowed right down to drink in the view and thought of pulling over for a phone-photo but thought better of it. Just let it be. Appreciate that it happened. Meanwhile some scruffy looking hawks have taken up their positions on hydro lines outside of town scanning the ditches for a meal, their backs turned to the traffic as if in a huff. Cardinals are limbering up their vocal chords, robins are fighting mad right now around the city lawns as if there aren't enough worms to go around. On the drive home from a village pub date tonight with my girl I narrowly missed a doe gracefully striding across the road. Phew. Continuing on at horse and buggy speed we rolled our windows down just in time to see a healthy looking fox skip up a farm lane, looking back over its shoulder every few yards to keep an eye on us, amber eyes glowing in the dusk. In the distance we can just make out the dark shadows of wild turkeys making the most of warm evenings in the corn stubble. All this is special but rather familiar to me having lived here most my life. But this past week I did get to check a bird off my life list. I heard them before I saw them, their gutteral rattling croaks are quite distinctive. I was cycling on a rural trail and slowed down looking up at the tree canopy of dark branches lacing the clear blue sky, (such a daydreamer) when a pair of sandhill cranes floated above me in smooth choreography. Sometimes it's enough to be in a fleeting moment. Be thankful. Feel lucky, and like so much small change escaping the pockets in my worn out jeans, let it slip away.
