It must be Spring and living at the beach

            It must be Spring now. I know it is so because the flock of crows or possibly ravens has returned to the park that is next to my building. I had to go out this morning for food at the market. I was greeted by a wildly circling, cawing, crowd of black birds.

            This spectacle has been going on for year now every Spring. It is probably older than I care to remember. In a sense, it is reassuring that nature has continued to follow the same pattern over the recent years.

            I have wondered why the black birds return every year and then fly off. My best guess is that they come here to nest and hatch their children.

            The park must be a safe place for birds. I have sat on my balcony while reading because it is a nice sunny place in the afternoon. Several times, I have looked up from my reading and found myself eye ball to eye ball with a red tailed hawk that was sitting in the fence that separates my building property from the park. I don’t think we were more than ten or twelve feet apart.  

            We watched each for ten or fifteen minutes. I think it could have been longer until one of us had to leave; me to go answer a phone call and the hawk for an unknown reason. Maybe it as hungry or bored. I don’t think it was frightened by my presence.

            It is windy at the beach. This is one reason why I love living where I do. My building is on a modest hill that is perhaps three quarters of a mile from the ocean. We get a good deal of wind here. I’m glad for the wind because it is my air conditioning.

            The park has a lot of tall trees, eucalyptus from Australia, that must be sixty or seventy feet tall. The wind was stronger this afternoon because of an approaching weather front from the south. It is a high pressure system I think because the wind was an onshore wind. It blew strongly.

            The tall trees bent and swayed vigorously. The wind passed through the branches and leaves that made a rushing sound like waves rushing up a beach to wet the sand.

            It was a great day today to read on the balcony and to enjoy life at the beach.

            Be well and stay happy.