Some Flowers For You

March 11, 2022 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 18 Comments

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting a lot here lately.

This is partly because, like everyone else, I’m struggling with the enormity of what’s going on in the world.

Also, I’m finally, finally making a little progress with my book about crows, and I need to keep my head involved in that as much as I possibly can.

These two things are still standing in my way— but I thought I could at least send you a few flowers.

I traditionally post images of some of the early blooming hellebores in my garden on social media around this time of year — offering a little hope of spring around the corner. They are always displayed in a little green vintage bowl I picked up at a thrift shop many years ago.

Today, however, I suddenly felt that this bowl was no longer big enough for all the good wishes I needed to send, so I took myself off to my local thrift store especially to find a bigger vessel.

I found a big, beautiful, shallow glass bowl that was just perfect.

So here, just for you …

As I was photographing the bowl from different angles, the flowers kind of reminded me of a party … remember those?

Everyone all dressed up …

All the different types of people you might meet in a big gathering of strangers …

How you might hesitate and try to decide who looks most approachable in the crowd …

Colour, joy, friends, love, festivity … wishing us all more of these.

And, above all, peace.

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Random Wednesday Beauty

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 8 Comments

Just a quick little post today as I have to turn my hand to cake-making shortly. Wish me luck, as I’m a bit of a hit and miss baker these days, due to lack of practice.

But it’s my husband’s 68th birthday tomorrow, so a cake must be made, since no shopping can be done. The Mississippi Mud Cake contains bourbon, so how bad could it be, really?

I always like walking in alleyways, just because they off an interesting view of the neighbourhood, and are full of randomly dilapidated beauty.

Now they have the added advantage of fewer people, so higher score on the social distance-o-meter.

Unusually crowded alleyway moment.

Topographical view of a verdant landscape.

Those colours are almost as good as a tropical vacation. Feel free to squint your eyes and pretend its palm trees and a Caribbean sea.

Blue and Gold, Van Gogh colours in an old wheelbarrow.

Meanwhile, on our front street, the Spring Thing is going ahead as scheduled, in spite of everything.

Spring Garden Notes for Sanity

March 21, 2020March 21, 2020 / The Urban Nature Enthusiast / 29 Comments

I realize that I’m incredibly lucky to have a garden I can escape into, even if we’re confined to home.

It’s like having a cabin with an outside deck on the cruise ship of pandemic life.

The least I can do, in gratitude for my good fortune, is to share some of the things going on out there.

I hope to be posting every other day, about birds, or crows, or ravens . . . but some days I (like many of you) feel just a bit too discombobulated to construct a sentence, so bear with me if there are gaps.

Newly returned pine siskin enjoying the bird bath.

Now that it’s officially spring, I took the bold move of finally removing the bird bath heater. Call me crazy! We may even go hog wild and get the small fountain out of winter mothballs too.

I keep thinking that the Steller’s Jays have moved on permanently, but then, when I’m reconciled to their absence, back they come. It’s not hard to know when they’ve arrived, what with the shrieking calls and flashes of electric blue — my cue to stop listening to the radio and rush outside and enjoy them before they move on again.

The finches, House and Gold, are providing a more melodic garden sound track with an almost constant chorus of song.

Mr and Mrs House Finch

The bushtits are back, but often in groups of only two, now that nesting season has arrived.

Female bushtit with her pale gold eyes.

And those bushtits are still using their clever little claws for holding their food like a the world’s smallest burrito.

I have been doing my Feederwatch bird count each week, even though sometimes it’s hard to settle down and do it. I have to say, I highly recommend it as a mental health strategy. Even if you don’t have a garden, you just need to pick a spot with some birds (even if it’s just a few crows or pigeons), register, and do a count when you feel like it. It doesn’t have to be every week — just when you can.

Often when I go out there to count it’s as if the birds know and they all scarper.

But I’ve learned that if you are quiet enough and just sit for a few minutes, you will find that there’s always a bird somewhere out there.

Often it’s just one modest brown song sparrow scuffling ever so softly through the shadowy leaf litter.

Or a finch, outlined against the sun on a high branch, gathering a long breath for the next musical recitation.

I suspect there may be a metaphor to be sifted out of that word litter . . .

Song sparrow tightrope walking on the Daphne Odora

To close, I’d like to thank you all for reading my blog, and sometimes writing to let me know it helps a bit.

The fact is that writing the blog helps me a lot too, by giving me something positive to focus on at this crazy time.

So, thanks and stay well, be kind to each other. And to the birds, of course.