mental health

The Edgar Chronicles Continued

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 8 Comments

DAY ???

Well whatever day of staying the &%#$*?! home this is, we all know by now that stress binge eating can happen to the very best of us.

It may be a comfort to know that even Edgar is not immune . . .

STAYING IN SHAPE

In the moments between sleeping, binge eating and watching Netflix, it’s important to fit in a spot of physical fitness. Edgar has found that almost anywhere in the house can double as a gym. An indoor cat can still be fearsome Jungle Cat.

He especially likes to show off while I’m doing my ungainly human stretching exercises on the floor. “I think you could stretch that hamstring a lot further. Make it burn.” A cat makes a stern and uncompromising personal trainer . . .

Edgar also likes to supervise my morning yoga stretches. Occasionally the Sun Salutations come with a bonus Rainbow Cat.

WATCHING THE WORLD GO BY

Edgar recommends some therapeutic bird watching to pass the indoor hours. Geordie, personally, is not that excited by goldfinches.

Now a squirrel, THAT would be something to get excited about!

REACHING OUT

It’s a stressful time and we all need some love and kindness. Edgar knows how reach out (with a gentle paw) and let his people know when he needs a helping hand.

DEEP RELAXATION

Every night Edgar sleeps under our bed, snoring very, very softly.
He’s only recently started sleeping there, so the first time I heard this barely audible and yet inexplicable sound in the night, I had to get up with a flashlight to investigate — and there he was, blissfully asleep and delicately snorfling.
It’s too dark under there to get a decent photo, but this gives you an idea.
Now I’ve figured out what it is, I find the sound very peaceful in the deep dark night.
Wishing you all a small portion of Edgar’s tranquility.

Northern Flicker Gymnastics

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 3 Comments

The Squirrel Buster bird feeder is an ingenious contraption. When anything heavier than a small bird (say, a squirrel for example) lands on the perch to get at the food, their own weight causes little doors to close on all the seed ports. Northern Flickers are also, technically, too heavy to use this feeder but, even though they have a couple of other food options to chose from, they clearly take this a personal affront.

Luckily they have their secret weapon, the mindbogglingly long tongue they keep neatly wrapped around their brain and ready for instant deployment. All woodpeckers have very long tongues, usually with barbed ends for catching prey, but the Northern Flicker has the longest of all of them, and their tongue tip is flattened and comes with extra sticky saliva for collecting the ants that they find so delicious.

So, back to the Squirrel Buster conundrum.

This male Flicker (you can tell by the red “sideburns”) has figured out that by hanging from the perch he can j-u-s-t get his tongue into the the gap at the bottom of the closing door. I was a bit worried he’d get his tongue stuck and we’d have a difficult conversation with the Wildlife Rescue team, but it seems he’s done this before.

Not only did he get the food out quite handily, he managed to also pick up the bits that fell out of the feeder and landed on his belly. This is where the really impressive gymnastics come in.

I’m pretty sure I saw these two, taking a break from digging up ants, exchanging bird feeder foiling tips on my dog walk the other day.

And, just in case you think it’s only the males who have figured this out, here’s a female I saw doing it in back February, so perhaps she passed on the technique to her mate.

Speaking of ingenuity I’ve been scanning the internet for COVID-19 mask making patterns, as it seems that medical advice here in North America is now pivoting in favour of mask-wearing for all to help “flatten the curve”.

So, just in case you’re also thinking about making your own mask, I’ve looked at a few and made a couple of versions for when someone from our family needs to go out for groceries. The one I like best is this one from the University of Minnesota. It seems to have a good fit, and it has a pouch to put replaceable home-made filters in (suggestions for filter material you can find about the house are included in the instructions.)

If you don’t have a sewing machine, these instructions for a no-sew mask using only a bandana and a couple of hair ties looks promising.

Stay safe and healthy everyone, and remember to take a break from the news and the graphs from time to time with some daily #birdtherapy.

 

 

 

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© junehunterimages, 2020. 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.

Dreaming Days

/ The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 9 Comments

Today’s post is rather short. I’m not sure where the days go — I feel as though I’m dreaming through great chunks of them.

I think I need to let my thoughts wander (even more than usual) for a bit while my brain makes a feeble effort to catch up with reality.

So, here I present some dreaming birds.

I’m sure they’re not really dreaming, but I know I dream about them.

When I close my eyes I see intricate bird details. The feathers around their eyes, the reflections in their eyes, myself sometimes reflected there. I wonder what they’re thinking.

Honestly, I really haven’t been in the cooking sherry. Yet.

I need to think of how I want to carry on with my art and work. I have had various thoughts around this, beginning with when I broke my foot in December. Universe sending signals etc . . .

I have my online shop closed at the moment to make more time for the blog (which somehow seems most important to me at the moment) and to give myself a little dreaming space.

I know that a lot of people have asked for prints, especially of the crow carrying the blossom branch, so I hope to spend a bit of time in the next week working on new images. I hope I’ll be ready to open the shop again in a week or so.

In the mean time, I may resort to re-posting some older blog posts to carve out the time to do that. It’s really amazing how little I seem to be able to accomplish in a day at the moment (although we did manage to sort out a lifetime’s collection of old tea bags the other day.)

Fear not, I’ll still post Edgar’s advice here every few days, and daily on his Facebook page.

Wishing you safety, health and a perhaps some bird dreams to pass the strange days.

 

 

 

 

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© junehunterimages, 2020. 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.