For Your Holiday Viewing

December 9, 2021 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

Sometimes, when everything is all just too much, it’s good to put your feet up and lose yourself in the flickering warmth of the TV yule log.

Should the hypnotically dancing flames start to lose their allure, I have a modest alternative for your viewing pleasure — soothing moments from nature on my YouTube Channel.

I’ve had a YouTube channel for ages (how passé, I know, TikTok etc) and still don’t really know how it works, but I’ve recently added a bunch of videos just so it’s a single stop easy destination for those who want to zone out for a bit with some of my collection of nature videos.

On offer we have a range of programming — including the ever-soothing ravens goofing around in the snow.

Suggested beverage to watch with this series — a nice steaming mug of hot chocolate. Don’t stint on the marshmallows.

For something a little more meditative, we have the “Gazing Bowl In Quiet Rain.” Best enjoyed with a mint tea.

If you need a burst of energy, try “Northern Flickers Having a Lively Conversation,” accompanied with a strong espresso.

You’ll find a ton of other things to keep you entertained on there, from a crow making barking and miaowing sounds, to a raven listening to their own echo. I’ve started to put some things into Playlists to make things easier to find, but ran out of time for now, so you may just have to wander around when you feel the need to escape. Just click on the second tab at the top of the YouTube page where it says Videos, and they will all appear for your distraction needs.

I’m not a videographer, but sometimes when I’m out taking photos I come across something that really needs video to convey the amazement. At those moments I switch the cameral to movie mode and do my best. I never have a tripod and I usually have at least one dog on a leash, so the quality is never going to be professional. Apologies in advance for the dodgy sound and random wobbles and lurches to left or right.

Some possible causes of technical difficulties …

Of course, the best thing to do when you feel you feel the need for nature is to head outside yourself. Whether it’s a hike in the woods, a scramble up a mountain or just a quick foray out of doors to say hi to the local crows, actual nature and real fresh air is always preferable — but circumstances can often conspire against such ventures. In these dire situations a few minutes spent with a crow parent and baby video might do the trick.

If you’d like to subscribe to my channel you’ll get notices when I post new videos.

Wishing you and yours a happy and peaceful holiday season with lots of birds and fresh air and laughs.

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© junehunterimages, 2021. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Crow Therapy Thoughts

November 18, 2021 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 22 Comments

This summer I gave a couple of webinars on the topic of Crow Therapy and it’s something I think about almost every day as I try to understand why, after 15 years or so, I never tire of watching and taking photos of my local crows. Somehow I feel that the crows are a key to unlocking a big mystery and I’m still working on what it is. But here’s what I’ve got so far, starting with what I don’t think it is.

Precarious

Every time I write the phrase Crow Therapy I worry that it sounds just a little exploitative — as if crows, like the rest of nature, are just there for our entertainment. As if it’s something that could be packaged in a fancy jar and marketed to a stressed consumer. *

Fashion Statement

I hope it’s a more reciprocal arrangement — one in which crows can regularly jolt me out of my default setting of seeing the human race as the centre of the universe.

A little daily crow therapy reminds me that other lives — every bit as ordinary and epic as mine — are being lived alongside mine. This realization brings great joy, but also a weight of responsibility and I feel a constant obligation to communicate both.

Interpretive Dance

Joy, I feel, is something that we’re going to need more of in the coming years — and it needs to be a different joy than the kind with which we’ve soothed ourselves up to now. We need a more sustainable source of joy — less of the kind acquired via tropical holidays and the general accumulation of material things. I’ve convinced myself at different times in my life that I’m just one Tupperware container, one pair of pants, or that fabulous kitchen appliance away from my whole life falling into place, so I’m as much in need of convincing on this front as anyone else.**

Judgemental Crows

For the last few days my Twitter feed has been a rushing river of terrifying news from my own province of BC — roads and rail lines washed away, entire towns flooded, homes and lives lost in a moment. In the midst of this harrowing torrent, an ad for Lincoln cars bobs up regularly like a jolly life buoy. The ad assures me that driving a Lincoln will provide great relaxation in the face of life’s little frustrations — things liking having odd socks disappear in the laundry and (in a final touch of unintentional irony) having my umbrella blown inside out by the wind in a storm.

I am 100% sure that a new Lincoln is NOT the answer to life’s daily trials, and definitely not the way to relieve the sadness of seeing life inevitably altered by climate change and coming to terms with the difficult changes that will be needed.

But I do know that spending half an hour watching crows will help.

Philosopher Crow

Or watching rain drip onto a patch of moss. Or listening to the Northern Flickers chattering.

This is a sustainable joy, free, readily available to anyone, and consuming no natural resources … and it’s the kind of joy I’m trying to rely on more and more.

I do realize that I spend so much time exploring the meandering rabbit hole of my Crow Therapy theory, that I often fail to get around to posting anything about actual crows any more. I have a musing problem, I know …

Consequently I have a huge backlog of crow news and photos, so I will try to remedy this, starting tomorrow with a Marvin and Mavis update.

I guess the one thing that I was trying to say in this post was that I mean the idea of crow therapy (and my images) to be, not just a respite from general and/or climate stress, but also an inspiration and a focus for taking action to make things better — for ourselves, for crows, for nature as a whole.

Crow Bingo

February 21, 2021February 16, 2023 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 13 Comments

Crow bingo is my idea for introducing people to the fact that our Vancouver landscape, as busy and as disconnected from nature as it can appear, is actually full of crow reminders of the world outside of our human busy-ness.

My goals for Crow Bingo:

get people out of the house
give parents a focus for walks with kids
introduce everyone to the many benefits of Crow Therapy
encourage an awareness of all aspects of urban nature
sneakily convert people who don’t know they love crows yet

So here we go …

For beginners, Level One Crow Bingo:

You can chose to go for one row at a time, a diagonal or across, but ultimately it shouldn’t be too hard to sweep the whole board and then move on to …