You have likely heard about the concept of forest bathing or shinrin-yoku, as originated from modern Japanese culture. For a quick recap, go to the MenopauseMenu blog post How to Unplug and read Tip #4, or you can watch Lecture #70: Nature Therapy.
One of the central themes is walking in a forest and appreciating the healing effects of being in nature. No forest? Not to worry – you can do this at a local city park, in a back yard garden, alongside a river or stream, and up in the mountains past the tree line.
Well, here is a new twist I experienced the other day and just had to tell this story!
Looking down from my home office window I can see my back yard and the neighboring yards. Since it is January, the trees do not have leaves and even the smaller ground shrubs are pretty sparse.
Living near a 534 acre natural wooded park I get to see a lot of neighborhood city wildlife including raccoons, rabbits, rats (yuck!), coyotes, the very rare cougar, and birds.
Lots of birds.
There is a great blue heron rookery nearby, frequent bald eagles, intermittent sharp shinned hawks, waterfowl, pigeons and way too many seagulls.
In the smaller bird category – the ones who visit my back yard – there are crows, Steller’s jays, blue jays, northern flickers, all sorts of finches, bush tits and chickadees, a number of juncos, hummingbirds and lots of songbirds.
I’m in the habit of looking out my window to “check on the birds” when I need a quick break. My eye is always drawn to their quick movements as they flit about the collective back yard trees and bushes. Even though I have a squirrel-buster bird feeder I haven’t filled it in years as I prefer to watch the birds forage for bugs and other delectables on their own.
There are two shallow rock bird baths – one private and one out in the open. Interestingly, the wide open one is the most popular, perhaps because of good sight lines. I imagine you wouldn’t want to be taking a bath if a hawk was about to swoop down and grab you!
Back to the other day – I was watching the main bird bath and was delighted to see a parade of birds bathing. They took their individual turns for the most part, and I grabbed my iPhone to take a quick video just for fun.
I felt it needed a title: Pecking Order? The Little Junco That Could? Chickadee for the Win? It was fun to let my mind wander around this topic.
Well, no sooner than I had finished the 4 minute video, I spotted out of the corner of my eye a large flock of black birds (starlings?) land all at once in a tree two back yards over. Like a flock, they moved as one, and it was a bit startling to notice their sudden presence.
Clearly the bathing noises got their attention because after about 10 seconds they all rose from their tree and flew over to my back yard. Not one to really take a lot of videos, for some reason I started another video of the bird bath area and then the show started!
Honestly, I had a hard time keeping my iPhone still as I was trying not to laugh. It was in such stark contrast to the fairly relaxed bathing scene just a few minutes prior.
As the group whipped the water into a frenzy, I could actually hear all the water sounds even from my inside vantage point two stories up.
We Ride at Noon? Bathing Alone is for Sissies? I’ll Show YOU Whitecaps? It was fun to think of the various captions that could be created. And, the look of the two robins at the very end as they stared at the suddenly calm water – priceless!
Now THAT was a fun nature escape for the day!