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Succumbing to Nimue
May. 17th, 2004 08:18 pmIt was a spectacular Monday morning.
Despite the weekend being busy, I missed Danny![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
djjo even more than usual because I wanted to share those experiences with him. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but distracting at times. I wonder whether I'll get used to this.
After getting home from the gym I felt worn out from so much activity the past several days, and started to settle into a languid funk. That was no good. At 11:30 I shovelled myself outside to enjoy a walk on this marvellous spring day.
Down by the river I took a few pictures. I heard a nondescript warbler song (mp3). It was one I should know. I spotted it, tried to focus my binoculars on it, but at that moment it flew across the river out of sight, there to resume singing. I felt inclined to turn back home by the pressure to accomplish things. Sometimes I still struggle with an underlying concept that going for walks—like writing, drawing and so many other things I like to do—is an unproductive diversion, that I have no right to waste my days doing such things. Consequently I tend to waste hours playing computer games instead.
I inhaled the warm, fragrant air and told myself, "This is what you live for." I knew that once I let go of the pull of home I would start to enjoy myself, and the walk would make me happy about this day at least. So I followed the warbler across the bridge to the other side.
Once there I got caught in the pull of the moment, that state in which the senses are continually drawn by one new discovery after another. The forest floor uncoiling with ferns. The elusive warbler, like Nimue, leading me stumbling through undergrowth. A mallard landing with a quiet swish on the water. Wet mud squishing into my sandals and between my toes. Some Canada geese raising a yodeling ruckus. Marsh marigolds, false solomon's seal, and the last white trilliums fading to pink. My anxiety was quickly forgotten. More photos will follow in a subsequent post.
I stopped to photograph a pop can lying in the woods and discovered black ants trooping in and out of the opening, gathering nourishment. They were so large, sometimes I could hear their feet skittering inside.
It's surprising what will turn up in a city park. I spotted orange mint growing in marshy soil and gathered a handful to bring home for tea along with a root of wild ginger.
The mystery bird turned out to be something common, a black-and-white warbler, but it was my first sighting for the year, along with two other returnees: a great-crested flycatcher and, one of the loveliest songbirds of all, an indigo bunting. The flycatcher nearly startled me out of my wits, emitting without prelude a loud "Wheep!...burble." in the tree right over my head.
Finally, heading home, I stopped on Victoria Road bridge to watch cliff swallows swooping underneath. Few birds are more graceful. While taking pictures of sun reflected on the water, I unwittingly captured two swallows wheeling through a frame.
Then I went down and photographed a cluster of their mud nests under the bridge. If you look closely you'll see little white spots in two of the openings. Cliff swallows have white foreheads, the function of which is obvious to me. It prevents an incoming bird from crashing into the one sitting there.
( See the nests )
Despite the weekend being busy, I missed Danny
djjo even more than usual because I wanted to share those experiences with him. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but distracting at times. I wonder whether I'll get used to this.After getting home from the gym I felt worn out from so much activity the past several days, and started to settle into a languid funk. That was no good. At 11:30 I shovelled myself outside to enjoy a walk on this marvellous spring day.
Down by the river I took a few pictures. I heard a nondescript warbler song (mp3). It was one I should know. I spotted it, tried to focus my binoculars on it, but at that moment it flew across the river out of sight, there to resume singing. I felt inclined to turn back home by the pressure to accomplish things. Sometimes I still struggle with an underlying concept that going for walks—like writing, drawing and so many other things I like to do—is an unproductive diversion, that I have no right to waste my days doing such things. Consequently I tend to waste hours playing computer games instead.
I inhaled the warm, fragrant air and told myself, "This is what you live for." I knew that once I let go of the pull of home I would start to enjoy myself, and the walk would make me happy about this day at least. So I followed the warbler across the bridge to the other side.
Once there I got caught in the pull of the moment, that state in which the senses are continually drawn by one new discovery after another. The forest floor uncoiling with ferns. The elusive warbler, like Nimue, leading me stumbling through undergrowth. A mallard landing with a quiet swish on the water. Wet mud squishing into my sandals and between my toes. Some Canada geese raising a yodeling ruckus. Marsh marigolds, false solomon's seal, and the last white trilliums fading to pink. My anxiety was quickly forgotten. More photos will follow in a subsequent post.
I stopped to photograph a pop can lying in the woods and discovered black ants trooping in and out of the opening, gathering nourishment. They were so large, sometimes I could hear their feet skittering inside.
It's surprising what will turn up in a city park. I spotted orange mint growing in marshy soil and gathered a handful to bring home for tea along with a root of wild ginger.
The mystery bird turned out to be something common, a black-and-white warbler, but it was my first sighting for the year, along with two other returnees: a great-crested flycatcher and, one of the loveliest songbirds of all, an indigo bunting. The flycatcher nearly startled me out of my wits, emitting without prelude a loud "Wheep!...burble." in the tree right over my head.
Finally, heading home, I stopped on Victoria Road bridge to watch cliff swallows swooping underneath. Few birds are more graceful. While taking pictures of sun reflected on the water, I unwittingly captured two swallows wheeling through a frame.
Then I went down and photographed a cluster of their mud nests under the bridge. If you look closely you'll see little white spots in two of the openings. Cliff swallows have white foreheads, the function of which is obvious to me. It prevents an incoming bird from crashing into the one sitting there.
( See the nests )
