A trot before work

The trots have been rather pathetic of late. Still, I continue to venture forth in my trusty running shoes, listening to some book or other unless I am in a place loud with birdsong. Then I pull the ear buds out and pay attention.

On this run, I watched a crow harassing a kestrel. The first time I'd seen that. The kestrel was smaller than the crow, but avoided - just - beak and claw. Magpies flashed, the white so white and the black gleaming with iridescence.

On this stretch of the river I once saw a kingfisher. Every time I pass, I look, but no burst of turquoise light.

I have not been thinking deep thoughts these last few days. But I have been... soothed, I guess, to read in Carl Safina's wonderful Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe, that my views on life and nature, one-ness and connection, caring and curiosity, are shared by someone I respect very much.

It is a lovely book.

He recounts some beliefs from Indigenous people about place, community and identity which align with what I say I have learned from badgers, crows and the robin in my presentation for the Anthrozoology Symposium next month. I felt validated. Of course, I could have learned from someone of the Lakota Nation or some other group, but I learned those things from the animal-people around me. There's something enchanting about that.