Apparently, it is best to visit our little farm first thing in the morning. At 5 am the traffic is horrendous! We have a series of cheeky characters roaming around carefree, taking turns as if they had booked by the hour.
First are the little birds and then some not so small, all making the morning market hubbub that follows the silence of the night. A series of swallows show off flying skills. A jackdaw comes in, looking into my eye as it bounces ahead and takes flight again. Then a dance of landing and chasing between two jackdaws looking for food, and the tens of swifts that appear displaying an aerial defense from above, making the dark birds give up on their quest.
A couple of red bellied robins come to look for little seeds and bugs. They stop to look at me lifting my cup of tea.
Some minutes later, a rabbit appears. It walks showing the white under its tail as it moves along from the lawn, into the barn, out and around the garden, trying in its way the taste of all sorts of flowers and leaves growing on the ground. It stops in alert. Then it moves behind some higher grass for safety, and all I see now is the moving ears above, which tell me it is still munching the grass.
There are many songs in the air. The swallows fly in and out of the darkness of the barn. The blue tits prepare their appearance, looking out of the bird box hole before adventuring the day. A single magpie appears. Just for a few seconds as it flies away as soon as I sneeze. That didn’t last long.
The sun starts touching the hills on the other side of the valley.
After some minutes of silence, the bird songs resume and a squirrel walks across the yard, up on the pile of stones, and searches in the gaps for food, probably stored there in autumn. She knows where she is going, right to a very specific spot, before she turns around and disappears as fast as she came into the scene.
Goldfinches, blue tits, sparrows… all pop in and out of the nests rushing to satisfy the infinite hunger of their offspring, Screeches can be heard rising and stopping as the parents fly frantically providing food from here and there.
The ears bring the rabbit back to the middle of the yard. Three robbins land in strategic corners of tables, stones, and boxes, singing to each other short sentences and pecking around. The hens awake and cluck in the run behind the slope.
Over an hour has gone looking around and enjoying the music, the dances, and the light of the new day. I really think I couldn’t be more lucky to have such busy traffic just outside my house.
Kestle Alpacas 