YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I've been coming home in the dark of night to an absolutely medieval cacophony. The click click clicking of rusty equipment, movement, whooshing, wings flapping. I thought they'd opened up a slaughterhouse somewhere. Turns out it's baby blue herons somewhere in the neighbourhood! The babies click for food, randomly, in the night or day. The parents are flapping, chirping, moving. Not the pleasant morning chirping of birds for sure!

I'm just enjoying the hummingbirds knowing that they will soon be gone.

Wow Heather, that's interesting!
I see Blue Herons pretty often, but not in rookeries unless I'm in the Everglades.

(And who doesn't enjoy a nice midnight snack.... )

Hello! Not just birds, but live cameras set up around the world, letting you peak in on nesting and lots of other activities in the natural world and elsewhere.

https://explore.org/livecams.

(Just got off a Zoom call with the Audubon society where they highlighted this. Helps me feel a little bit more connected to the natural world, and positive-things-going-on )

The warblers are coming through, and does that lift my spirits. Listening for, and trying to remember their songs when they're hidden up in the trees.... Then seeing a flash of a color or other marking... Then getting a real glimpse... But always needing to stay focused on tracking them as they hop and flit about, living their little lives. So exquisite! So exciting! If only for a couple of hours in the morning....

I'd like to fly away with them..

I filled the birdfeeders back up today after leaving them empty for a couple of weeks. The blackbirds had been making pigs of themselves so I had left them empty for a little bit. As soon as I walked away, the cardinals were back eating. They know I am the slacker that hasn't been filling it.

But they don't hold a grudge!

In the past couple of weeks on walks at our big city park I saw: the tallest Great Blue Herron that I've ever seen, a group of sleeping mandarin ducklings, a fluffy owlet hiding in a Eucalyptus tree, a collection of Monarchs and bees enjoying the "Pollinator's buffet" area, a rustic fence made of spindly melalueca branches, one lone cherry tree still blossoming after all the others have finished, a stone near the tree that I've never noticed before that's inscribed with a message from our sister city of Anjo, Japan, stating that a gift of 50 cherry trees was given in the spirit of renewed life and vitality represented by the trees.

There are so many things happening right now that fill me with sadness and anger, including a road rage shooting last week that killed a six-year old boy on the freeway where I commute for work. I'm trying to find a few beautiful things to hold on to.

I'm setting my alarm to get up early tomorrow to see part of the lunar eclipse, although I'm not sure I'll make it.

Hello Rivergirl,

Thank you for posting those lovely images. I'm jealous!

Know what you mean about sadness and anger at the world.... that's been my burden for many years and is never far away...

I feel somehow obliged to bear witness, and yet paying too close attention leads me toward depression, withdrawal, and destructive habits. Started in my teens.

What can we do ? ?
Try to keep a balance, and extend ourselves, even if only in small positive ways.

(Says me, today.... but unsure what mood tomorrow might bring.....)

Wishing you well,

SD