A Mindful Walk
Yesterday afternoon, I ventured into the trails of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The walk was full of wildlife -- tadpoles, woodpeckers, turtles, and plenty of plants.
At the start of the walk, I noticed an interesting swirly plant. I made an observation with iNaturalist to try to identify the plant, but it kept coming up with suggestions that were ferns. That didn't seem right. I tried a couple more times and kept moving along, continuing to observe the plants along the way. As I continued to observe, I noticed these squirly plants were always surrounded by ferns. The swirly plants seemed to be an early stage of that fern! While this may seem blatantly obvious to an experienced naturalist, I was thrilled to have the revelation by merit of my own observation.
The entire walk, the entire woods spoke to me and I listened. I noticed robins hopping, red-tailed woodpeckers drilling, and red-winged blackbirds screeching. Slowing down my walking and looking at my surroundings helped me be more aware. I was even able to identify the red-tailed woodpeckers location by sound, and had the pleasure of watching the bird for several minutes.
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