A Breath of Fresh Air

"Ck, ck, ck, ck, ck. 

The sound was rhythmic, steady, constant and completely out of place in the woodland. There was no other humans around, the day was still and the sun was shining gold through the trees. Curiosity played its game. 

I got distracted by the sun shining through peeling birch bark and felt my senses pause. It felt like the first time in a while I'd taken in a new breath that hadn't immediately disappeared into a darkness inside. 

Looking up to a hurried passing of the binoculars, I was instructed to look through the branches of the surrounding trees to the hazel beyond. For there it was. 

Bright golden breast highlighted by the golden hazel behind. Black cap all the more dramatic against the warm autumn light. Grey back merging in to the surroundings and there was the motion. Head up and down in that same rhythm to match the sound, beak whacking against a hazelnut held firm in the great tits feet. 

The picture was one of perfection. This bird, this moment: the world held her breath and I felt the same peace pervade my entire being. This felt like a release.

The summer has been a tough one. Several unexpected curveballs were thrown at us, the final (touch wood) being the death of our beloved hens at the hand of a pine marten. Time has rushed by in a chaos of heavy thought, with happiness pasted on for everyone but myself. How long since I've just been?  

The walk was calm and quiet. I damaged the ligaments of my knee a while ago and it's taken a bit of time to heal. I missed nature as I missed my free movement: it was time to reclaim my relationship. 

Everything fell into place: the lightest of rain showers that felt more like a blessing than something to be avoided; the golden light that shone through: the rainbow that appeared, the heavy clouds that carried snow to the mountains. And culminating in the most magical observation of the natural habit of the great tit - it eventually flew, but not before I found my shoulders relaxing from the tension they'd been carrying.

If I had declared to Mother Nature that I needed a break: I needed a perfect day out of doors, she couldn't have come up with something better if she'd tried.  

On we walked, leaving the great tits to their tap-tap-tapping, and wandering along the path. It was an old drove road that we followed, and I could feel time walking beside us. Could almost imagine the small, black hairy cows lowing as they left their highland crofts behind and walked the long road to the lowland cattle markets.

Drovers no longer drive cattle in Scotland, but life still continues along this path. Further down a sudden movement again drew our attention. There, neatly silhouetted on a branch of a rowan was a song thrush. I watched, transfixed, as it calmly sat and looked around, preening slightly as the branch swayed under its weight. 

"Oh", I exclaimed as it flew, but it didn't go far. Now perched next to the main trunk I could see only the breast and head but I wasn't missing anything. 

The perfect arrow markings on its breast stood out against the creamy milkiness perfectly. Nature's colour pairing. The light stripes along its face only served to highlight its dark eye, which was checking to see what the crows were shouting about 100 metres away.     

It was almost possible to see it relax as it realised there was no threat. Sitting lower to the branch with a quick twist, it turned and caught one of the nearby rowan berries from a twig which it promptly swallowed whole. It happened in an instance: the glistening rosiness of the berry sat in its beak, perfectly spherical, almost transluscent with shininess, before with a flick of the head it was gone.

Two incidences of watching birds do their thing. Unhurried, unpanicked, totally disregarding our presence, but leaving us with memories that will last a long time. For me, I am calmer. I'm getting there. Time heals many wounds, and these will one day be memory.