bird walk

LG took me birding today and I had a marvelous time!  I still need that book of Little Brown Birds for Dummies, but in the meantime, LG is getting me a great start.  We went to a wildlife refuge a few miles from here and strolled through the spring sunshine, feeling the fresh breezes and listening to the busy, busy life going on around us.  We saw warblers and flickers and a cinnamon teal and bitterns and bassoons and oboes and a log shingled with pond turtles basking in the sun.  We wandered into the middle of a shouting match between several bullfrogs.  It took us over an hour to walk almost two miles.  I love the pace of birding.  Take a few steps, stop, listen, look, look harder, then look through the binoculars.  Repeat as necessary. I am now in a sort of stunned, sensory overload state.  It's surprising how many blinders and baffles I use to get through the day.  There is SO much I don't see, hear, smell,feel.  When I take the screens down and let it all in, it feels rather like a boot to the head.