This morning the garden is basking in uninterrupted sunlight. Not a cloud in the sky. Warm, but not hot. A lovely breeze moving the air about. No complaints from any quarter. Oh wait; the garden pots have threatened to go on strike if they're not watered. So that was the first item of attention this morning after breakfast.

And then we felt free to indulge ourselves in a forest walk in the ravine. It's drying out very nicely from our plenitude of rainfall. Even most of the pools of rainwater that have sat grumpily on the forest floor for most of the spring and summer are finally disappearing. Not entirely, but working on it....

Few others evidently felt the compulsion to make their way into the woods this morning. It is a Saturday, after all, when many people respond to a different type of compulsion; shopping. For many that takes precedence over all other values and priorities, and so be it. It does make for a more serene walk-about on the trails, when Jackie and Jillie are more focused on sniffing about than making a hideous commotion over the presence of dogs they aren't familiar with.

There was the opportunity for one short-lived race-about with a somewhat familiar dog. Some of whom are inclined to overlook the bad manners of our pair and play with them, others, usually getting on in years, hoping to make short shrift of the misfortune of coming across those yapping, annoying little dogs.

And then we came across a familiar figure. Someone we recognize because he has been featured on occasion in newspaper stories as a vigorous local bird watcher. Strangely enough, he recalled meeting us on these very same trails about ten years earlier, the first time we'd seen him there. At that time we stopped to talk about the kinds of birds seen in the area, and we did the same this time. My husband showed him where the last nests of barred owls were located in several places along our walk.

He wanted his memory refreshed, as it had been a few years since he had been to the ravine. He has a professional camera as his resource tool, whose magnification is many times that of my little digital camera, and as an experienced birder it's without doubt he'll see things that escape our notice. We talked at length about the birds seen in the ravine in the past; a relative paucity of them this spring and summer.

I mentioned my younger brother, also someone whose interest focused on birds. He knew my brother by name and reputation. It's a tight world that is occupied by bird-watching enthusiasts.