Happiness, Sayeth the Raven

 

"Ravens taught me to pay attention. The desert taught me to see. Art and artists taught me to see more... and better... and to savor, appreciate and protect,"

~Linda Durham

Is it a good thing to see a raven? Is it a bad thing to see a raven? There are a lot of schools of thought on that. As far as I am concerned, most things outside of my own intuition is superstition. Black cats are not bad luck. I have never experienced bad luck after breaking a mirror, let along seven years. One of the best days of my life, was marrying my husband on October 13th, and nothing has ever happened to me after walking under a ladder. Although, now that I think about it, I don't walk under that many ladders. Hmmm. Anyway, I was so happy to be able to add this wonderful bird to my album of bird species I have seen this year. There it was, drinking from a small puddle, just outside the gates of the Yolo Bypass Wilderness Area, in Davis, Ca. A moment like that shouldn't be passed up. And I didn't.

Happiness

Belted Kingfisher

  

"Birds know themselves not to be at the center of anything, but at the margins of everything. The end of the map. We only live where someone's horizon sweeps someone else's. We are only noticed on the edge of things; but on the edge of things, we notice much."

 

~Gregory Maguire

Out Of Oz

 

Finally, after almost 10 months of searching ditches and fence posts, I found the Belted Kingfisher, or as my Twitter pal Gary calls it, my nemesis, but really, it was simply, my greatest birding challenge in my first year of birding. I didn't spot it first, Alan did, as we drove through the Yolo Bypass Wilderness Area, in Davis, Ca. We love it there, and it was apparent that the birds have definitely started the annual migration. When we visited in the middle of summer, it was completely empty, save for a few Red-winged Blackbirds. Not that I don't love them, but they are almost as common in the area as sparrows. We will most certainly be doing birding on vacation!

 

 

 More to come!