Morning meditation

It is very cold here, with ground frost crisping my lawn and those frost tender plants that have survived in my garden, especially so at six thirty this morning as I saw my husband off on his trip to Lusaka. The just risen sun made a warm patch against the bedroom wall and I edged into it, eyes slitted, absorbing the warmth available.

Standing with my eyes closed against the sunrise I listened to the crows to my right and the purple crested louries honking call on my left wondering, no more than idly, how many of each were making such a racket. Not realising that I was listening so intently I began to pick out other bird calls. A chiruping robin, no doubt one of our cats was too close for his comfort, the endless busy chatter of small seed eating finches, the aggressive chirping yellow bellied sunbirds, the piping note of the starlings, the sudden rattling, chattering flurry of a group of babblers, the soft tone of a mourning dove ...... and on and on. Identifying the familiar residents of my garden not as usual by sight but by sound.

All the while enjoying the warming of the sun in a place out of the wind that carried the faintest scent of Antarctica.

As I finally opened my eyes I discovered that I was not alone in sunning myself for not far above my head where a pair of speckled mousebirds and their three offspring clinging below the branch as is their way, tummy's exposed to the morning sun, eyes firmly closed against the glare and further up a whole flock of tiny bronze mannikins were doing the same thing.

I understood why they enjoyed the pleasure of an early morning sunbathe, joined as I was in enjoyment.


And whispering silently beyond our pleasure I could feel the Almighty smiling at our simple happiness.

                                                                     

                                                                          Mousebirds                     

Bronze mannikins