If only.....
Two jackdaws stare at me from their perch in a beautiful stand of spring-tipped silver birches. They are suspicious of me, but I mean no harm.
A jay looks, slightly myopically, in my direction, not sure if I will pass by....
A red kite surveys me from the safety of his thermal, then zooms away, uninterested.
Geese - Canadas:
Greylags:
Brent:
And Egyptian:
Fly past in formations, oblivious to, or just unconcerned about, my insignificance.
I walk, with my wife, quietly - with little conversation - every morning. I carry a camera all the time. One time I may see a Barn Owl dropping in on some busy rodent:
Another time I may glimpse an angle-poised heron cruising above the fish he will invite to dinner:
I use the camera to record the lives I witness, and also to help identify my fellow creatures. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish one little bird from another, and only when I magnify the pixels can I be sure of who I have pictured.
Here, for example, are a few tiny souls whose paths I recently crossed:
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| Linnet (f) |
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| Chiff Chaff |
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| Chaffinch (f) |
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Swallow |
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| Wren |
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| Stonechat (m) |
But they have all kept their distance. I cannot reach out and touch them. Our friendship, if you can call it thus, is distanced. What does it take to make a friend? What is it that makes us all so detached? I mean them no harm. I have no axe, nor grinder. We breathe the same air, eat, if you like, pretty much the same organic produce, and certainly need to drink the same water.
I am not bathed in an aura of loving everything and every body - for example, I have no desire to spend my time in the company of woodpigeons with their monotonous phone-dial croonings or their huge appetite for my broccoli. And if push came to something like a shove I could probably live without mallards..... But, for God's sake, why is it so difficult to be friends with your neighbour?
Here are a few more snaps taken recently, from a distance, of beautiful things who really don't want to associate with me, or others like me.....
Yes, the world is full of life, for the moment..... And though we don't all speak the same language, we do all breathe the same air.
I just wish we could be friends.....
Especially as life is so short. We must make the most of every ray of sunshine,
For tomorrow is another day, and some friends have already gone.....
