We had an exciting backyard visitor a couple of weeks ago and the way we stumbled upon him really demonstrates the need for being fully present and noticing unusual behaviours.

Here’s the backstory - we were walking Roxy in our backyard as the weather has been so lovely and above 15C (mid 60’sF). We’ve spent time meandering and really following her which means slowing down for a full scale sniffari - animals are so great at really being present and using all of their senses to scan their environment for things that don’t belong.

Kory noticed that some birds were making a commotion in a group of evergreens in the back corner of our property. We headed over and I used my bird app to identify the bird sound - (Merlin eBird is a free app and a wonderful way to identify birds from photos or sounds) - red breasted nuthatches were the noisy ones we heard which made me wonder because they are not usually that vocal.