Rare things.

Contemplating whether to write anything today, I came close to concluding that nothing notable had happened and it wasn't even worth firing up the laptop.  A scan through a few websites did nothing to inspire me either.

Yet today, rare things crossed my path - things I am ashamed to have almost dismissed as forgettable.

Firstly, this morning a Cornish chough flew so close over my head as I walked the cliffs at Lizard Point that it seemed I could almost reach out and touch it.  I'm lucky enough to see a chough or two on most of my fairly regular visits to Cornwall, but I am always reminded of the significance of seeing one by all the other visitors here who stand and wait in hope of a sight of one and then share their excitement with each other when one appears.  Then, as dinner was nearing readiness this evening, a hen harrier flew into the field behind the house and landed for a time on a post by the hedge.  I'd never seen one of them before.  At almost the very same time, a barn owl flew across the neighbouring field, turning several times, hunting in the hedgerow, close enough to almost fill the view through the binoculars.  I've caught fleeting glimpses of barn owls before, but nothing like the display today's put on.

I actually hesitate to confess that I know what a chough and a hen harrier look like (everyone knows what a barn owl looks like, don't they?!), much less that I would stand and watch them through binoculars - albeit borrowed binoculars - as if bird-watching like this was akin to train-spotting or stamp-collecting, a bit geeky, something that might attract derision.  In fact though, I still feel a real thrill each time I see a chough or a peregrine; I can't believe other walkers don't even notice them and I want to stop them, hold them still and make them watch!  Thanks to my mum, whose knowledge of the local birdlife is seriously impressive (she can distinguish a whitethroat from a dunnock just by its song), I knew there was a barn owl nesting nearby and that the hen harrier made occasional visits.  Secretly, I hoped to see them as much as I hoped for sunshine, and I would have been bitterly disappointed to have left Cornwall without having seeing them.  The excitement of seeing them was not at all unlike that of opening a brilliant Christmas present.

These things are quite wonderful.  They sing (crow and hoot) about the beauty of the world and the remarkable diversity in it, which is something that is so easy to overlook and take for granted.  I don't know why it should be a secret that I would want to see them and I'm glad I've taken time today to stop and watch and wonder. 

By the way, the swallows are back too.  I love their sleek blackness, their flash of red and the way they dart through the sky with such incredible agility and joy - heralding and celebrating the arrival of summer.  They are my favourites!