Some times, some days, a break from the daily routine, the memories held for a particular time or day need to be elsewhere with less stress, no need to perform, or to make anyone happy except for yourself. Birding allows me that escape from all whether it be watching birds at my backyard feeder or a local pond. No doubt my mind focuses on what each bird is doing, its colors, and do I see a way to identify the bird. I don’t worry if I cannot know the type of bird it is, but I always love to creep up on one and take a photo if at all possible… and then they fly away or my zoom only captures a speck of a picture! Oh well!
I love it when a bird stays around for awhile. The bird is comfortably doing its thing and I can relax watching it, sometimes for minutes on end! Recently I watched a mallard preen itself. Working through his feathers, throwing water around his body, scratching around his head with his foot, and then finally took a nap. What fun for me to hang out through its bathing! He had no worry about me being there and I had minutes of calm only with thoughts and observations of this bird.
Do we all have moments of calm? Enough moments of calm in a day, in a week in a month? Good mental health necessitates calm moments such as these. Yours may not be birding; maybe something else… walking, Zumba, petting your animal, meditation… whatever it is, take time for your mental health.
Some photos of that industrious mallard and then it took time for a nap!