Noticing Nature

I love the concept of ‘noticing nature’ – finding nature in our everyday lives and noticing, valuing and celebrating this. Noticing nature is good for me, it makes me smile and sometimes, it takes my breath away. Miles Richardson writes about this, much more eloquently than me, here.

Today, I find myself home alone with two dogs. One has been on ‘bed rest’ for a while but the painkillers seem to have done their trick and, this morning, I decided to take them both on a long but fairly sedate (no tennis balls) walk which would take us through cow fields, along the river and back along a disused railway line. On my own, with no distractions, is the perfect opportunity to take in the world around me.

This is what I noticed on my walk this morning (photos not that great as I only had my phone with me)…

A lone hare, with dark tipped ears, lolloping away from us.

A proud merganser, sitting on a rock.

A bold male chaffinch singing.

A family of ducks in a hurry.

Swallows, house martins and my first swifts of the summer.

A magnificent hornbeam hedgerow.

A buzzard soaring, first silently, then calling and then being chased off by a lapwing, presumably protecting a nest.

A fledgling blackbird, with its stumpy tail, seeking cover in a hedgerow.

Hawthorn in full blossom.

A bank of ox eye daisies on a road verge.