It’s the little things in life....
Yesterday, I left the house with every intention on joining Jacq at Edgwood Park in New Haven for the yoga and chanting. Really, I did. I even ended up in New Haven. For some reason when I got there, I just wasn't feeling it. So I just kept on driving.
I decided to go up the West Rock Ridge and go to the overlooks and possibly take some pictures. West Rock has an incredible view towards downtown New Haven and the Sound. The day was a little hazy, so it really wasn't the best day for taking good pictures.
As I sat at one of the pulloffs, a state Department of Environmental Protection vehicle drove by, on a routine patrol, I assume. When I drove to the bigger parking lot at the end the vehicle was parked there, with the ranger sitting inside. I parked a couple of spaces away and started looking for something to get pictures of.
"Your first time here?" the ranger asked me through the open window. I expalined that I had been up to West Rock several years ago when my job took me to the radio transmitter site on the "closed" side of the park. I hadn't been up there since.
He got out of the vehicle to talk with me, and as we stood there talking, several predatory birds started circling overhead. Apparently, the ranger had studied up on his birding, because he was able to identify several different species of bird. We spotted Red Tail Hawks, Osprey, and Turkey Vultures to name a few.
We stood there, watching the birds riding the thermals, and the pair of Red Tail Hawks "flirting" with each other. The male was riding the breeze, stationary, and the female was flitting by him, chirping what I interpreted as a happy song. I tried to get a picture of this, but the shutter delay of my digital camera didn't make it possible for me to get a shot of what I wanted.
The ranger said something to me the kind of reminded me of one of my mantras. He said "Sometimes people don't take the time to appreciate the little things in life." Just standing there watching the birds hovering and circling in the breeze made realize how right he really was.