06 November 2024

migration

I often feel embarassed to admit that I'm an optimist. I imagine it knocks me down a peg or two in people's estimations. But the world desperately needs more optimism. The problem is that people mistake optimism for 'blind optimism', the unfounded faith that things will just get better. Blind optimism really is dumb. And dangerous. If we sit back and do nothing, things will not turn out fine. That's not the kind of optimism I'm talking about.
Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it's having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference. We can shape the future, and we can build a great one if we want to.
Hannah Ritchie

All day, we were busy in the garden. I was busy sitting down and watching and drinking cups of tea while R was busy mowing and clearing and mulching and all the stuff that he has been doing for ever.

And all that time, thousands and thousands of crane were flying above us, on their way from Sweden and Finland to their summer homes in northern Africa. They do make a lot of noise. I waved to them and asked them to please come back next March.


5 comments:

  1. Sandhill cranes? I love hearing them fly over our house in the fall. It's a good reminder this morning that mother nature will survive long after we're gone.

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    1. It's the Eurasian crane (Grus grus), a bit smaller than the ones on the American continent. It's one fo the few birds not threatened by extinction - yet.

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  2. "Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it's having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference. We can shape the future, and we can build a great one if we want to."

    Thank you so much for the footage of the cranes today!

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  3. Sorry Ellen, somehow this is the only way I can publish your comment:
    "how wonderful. I was out one morning during spring one year and was lucky enough to see the sandhill cranes kettling in the sky as they prepared to fly north for the summer. they were flying in circles getting ever higher before they formed their Vs."

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  4. We don't have cranes that migrate by here, but we do have geese that honk their ways across the sky.

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