After a busy day of leading yoga practices yesterday I found myself a bit tired today; I wanted to take it "easy". The weather is beautiful in SoCal (in the low 70s and nothing but sunshine) so I decided to take a walk. I've lived in SoCal for 16 years and before today had never visited my local wetlands...I thought to myself minutes after beginning my walk, "I can't believe this is in my backyard and I've never taken the time to appreciate it before!" There were so many birds, ducks, sandpipers, swallows, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, White Faced Iibis' (these are fairly uncommon to see, so I was lucky today), American Coots, killdeer and many more that I'm not sure of what they were.
The highlight of my birdwatching today though was being fortunate enough to watch what I believe was a Peregrine Falcon* hunting and have it fly by, so close that I was able to look into it's eyes! What an amazing creature, circling above, diving down to the water and gliding right above the wetlands with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop - it was truly amazing to see.
Such simple things: a walk in my backyard, birdwatching, enjoying the sunshine, watching a bird of prey do what it does naturally, hunt - so simple, so beautiful and so amazing. A flock of seagulls is often seen as a burden, they are scavengers, pests to be shewed away, yet today I watched them circle, hovering on the wind in a large flock, acting almost as one large bird, all together, moving in unison; it was magnificent.
How fortunate I am to have experienced this today; the simple pleasure of watching birds fly, feeling the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, it left me smiling, filled with joy and truly grateful to be alive.
*I'm fairly sure (say 95%) that what I saw was a Peregrine Falcon based on some photo and identification research I did and other sightings in the area.
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