A moment of pleasure

How lovely. I love to hear the birds singing.

On Sunday afternoon, although cold, it was sunny and dry and I went for a walk. It was lovely and could almost imagine it was summer in the sun.

I watched two Roe deer munching their way around the garden. Mother and juvenile I think. They are quite sensible, eating just a few leaves from each plant, giving them chance to recover, and their need is greater than mine. Surprisingly ivy is their favourite. I am used to muntjac, and foxes and badgers at night, but a first for these beautiful creatures.

There's a blackbird near me and he was singing his heart out the other week before the frosts/snow and ice. I turned the television down just to sit back and listen and I could see where he was perched. It does lift the spirits no doubt about it.

We went for a walk and saw the snowdrops at a local national trust house on Sunday.

Feeding the ducks in the local park with DGS. His ‘belly’ laugh when he put duck food on my boot and the ducks took it from there was such a lovely sound.

Surprisingly, it’s been my daily drive to the hospital this past four weeks. I drive past Edgbaston Old Church, then through The Vale, university halls. Beautifully landscaped grounds, a lake with swans, and the stiff dark green blades of snowdrops poking through the frosty grass. There are always crowds of students walking to lectures. Radio 3 on the car radio, and I start my day.

It's birds for me too.
There's a blackbird lives in the Pittisporum only a few feet from my deck and open doors and sometimes he sings very quietly to himself.
A Tui wakens me most mornings and to human eyes the sky is still pitch black but he knows it's morning.
In winter it's a Grey Warbler's trill which heralds the dawn.

We are lucky to have loads of birds Iin our garden,including several pairs of blackbirds,.Well I do spend almost as much feeding them all as us DH says !But they bring so much pleasure,especially in winter when they are more visible.I did a bit of tidying up the other day and two competing robin's were singing across the garden to each other. And blackbirds have the most beautiful song.

Lovely. A few weeks ago I was sweeping up leaves on the front drive and a little robin popped out from under a bush in next door's garden. He bobbed down onto our drive and came very close to me as I swept. He seemed to be watching. Next time I was out there he appeared again. It was heartwarming.

On the school run yesterday morning, I took the back lane instead of going down the main road. So glad I did! I saw a small herd of deer standing in a corpse of trees, about 10 metres from the lane. I just had to stop the car and watch them for a few minutes. They were so close that I could see clouds of their breath! Made my week, never mind my day!

KatyK - I was reading something about birds the other day and it said the reason robins often follow us around the garden,and come so close is that they are opportunistic scavengers and as we dig,rake and tidy up we disturb the bugs and worms they love to eat.I still like to think our red breasted residents appear so often because they like me !

Oh washerwoman I thought he'd taken a fancy to me!

Well, Valentine’s Day is supposed to be the day the birds choose their mates, so perhaps they are trying to impress with their singing.

Birdsong is the thing that lifts my Spirits as well.
I have a bird table outside my kitchen window and spend a fortune filling it up every morning with peanuts and seeds.
The little robin and blue-tits and blackbirds are usually waiting for me, then sometimes a flock of Starlings will come marauding around and finish the lot.
If I haven't noticed the bird table being empty, the little robin sits dead still on the edge of it and stares and stares at me through the kitchen window until I go out with some more. They're clever little things!

I saw on some TV documentary that when the UK was largely covered with forest, robins would follow wild pigs as they foraged, to pick up the worms and grubs they dug up.

So I'm afraid that to robins, gardening humans are just an updated version of foraging wild pigs.

Birds for me too. I came across a heron out in the open the other day and watched it for ages while it poked around. And this morning as I was walking the dog, a large group of swans flew overhead in formation, honking away and heading for the nearby lake. So surprising and beautiful and lovely to remember. Nature is wonderful, even if you live in town like I do.

Another strange moment of joy for me was when my dgs and I were cooking.
He needed to sprinkle a little more flour so we could roll pastry and he plunged his hand deep into the bag.

'I LOVE the feel of flour, it's so soft and comforting.' he said.
And amazingly, that's exactly how I used to think as a child - and still do.

And the sight of a glass of clean water in the sunshine is pure magic.

What a lovely positive thread. So much better than negatively. Birds singing , friendly people , the sunshine today , snowdrops and crocii flowering all brought a smile to my face this morning

Although I live in suburbia there's a park over the road at the back, and a green in front, and we get loads of birds. Rather annoying when the seagulls get going later in the year but at the moment we're enjoying all sorts of early spring birdsong. It does uplift one.

Snowdrops in the churchyard, aconites showing their sunny little faces, a robin perching on my fence and singing its little heart out...

Exactly the same thing!!!
Seeing and hearing the birds lately AND feeding them
While on here btw TOP TIP I've recently acquired in that birds (Blackbirds especially) absolutely LOVE cooked rice - be careful not to add salt but they come flocking for it and we regularly see up to 6 feeding together! Hope that might be another thing to give you another moment of pleasure MaggieMay60

Thank you lovely gransnetters ? these are a few of my favourite things (humming the tune)

Our blackbirds, pheasants and tits haven't waited for Valentine's Day - they are paired already and defending territories in the case of the blackbirds. The woodpeckers have not started drumming yet though.

Our daffodils were already up and showing above the recent snow.