Sunwatchers' Bulletin

Hi Sunwatchers,

Last evening marked a BIG Sunstone in my sunwatching for this season.  The sun set around the corner of the building to the southwest for the first time.

Sunset reaches Sunstone Feb 8

I don’t really like to notice exactly when it disappears behind that building on the “way south” but I’m so happy to notice that it reappeared yesterday!! There was a glorious sunset but you’re getting this photo this time.

Now there’s getting to be lots to report.

At Burnaby Lake (right where and when the body was discovered on Monday), I could hear and see the male redwings proclaiming “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here”.  Their true spring calls.  Not one of them posed for me alas!

However, this young fellow who was caught between me (at a greater distance) and a man on the other side of him was hesitant to maintain his path.  But the man clicked his tongue at him a few times, in a friendly and reassuring way, and the coyote went on his route.

Young Coyote Hesitates

I didn’t exactly have my zoom lens on!  But at least I got 3 photos of him.

And He’s a good image to go with this passage from David Whyte’s poem, Coleman’s Bed, which I want to quote to mark the beginning of the new season.

See with every turning day,

how each season makes a child

of you again, wants you to become

a seeker after rainfall and birdsong,

watch now, how it weathers you

to a testing in the tried and true,

admonishes you with each falling leaf,

to be courageous, to be something

that has come through, to be the last thing

you want to see before you leave the world.

I have reflected on the notion of each season making a child of us.  I do think that’s why you are reading this post.  And, I think it’s what people love about living in a place with true seasons (even if it’s only the rainy and the dry ones).  It’s a fabulous poem.  I have it in his collection River Flow, New and Selected Poems and also on CD, The Echo in the Well, Secret Voices from the west of Ireland.  Perhaps I’ll quote the next section in another post!  It’s about keeping silent to hear the story.  Sorry about the formatting.  The limitations (or mine) in WordPress.com! There aren’t supposed to be spaces between the lines like that.

I think that’s enough for today. Oh one of my green photos has to go in here. I got a lot of moss photos too–ones I really am pleased with.  Perfect light for them. I think I could have spent at least an hour at one tree since it had so many varieties on it.  But these fronds show the new springing light so well, they are the Sunwatchers from the green world for today.

Springing Light

Today’s statistics are:  sunrise was at 7:32 and the sunset is scheduled for: 17:21.

Until next time!,

Sunwatchers’ Daphne