To me favourite things are not necessarily tangible things. Moments, taken, chosen, and simply enjoyed are much more preferred.
An absolute favourite thing to do is sit in our duck enclosure. Whether I am reading, writing (like now), or simply watching. The peace and serenity is a beauteous thing. The odd car going by on the road on the other side of our little valley may interrupt, but on the whole it is just muted village noises and the birds I hear in the background. I find myself often stopping what I am doing just to soak in the moment.
A Tawny owl lives in a large tree two gardens behind me. He lets me know periodically that he is still on the search for a mate with his ‘who who’. I thought he finally got lucky last week when there was an answering cry. But maybe she wasn’t the one for him as he is back to asking around if anyone is interested.
The ducks are currently all napping around me. Little heads turned and beaks tucked into feathers. They have split into two groups now. The white call ducks and the mallards. Except for Louis, our first call duck. He prefers to hangout with the mallards as we don’t think he realises he is also a call duck. Not too far in the future they will start pairing up.
Maggie, our matriarch, is the true favourite of all the males. Consequently, she now keeps to herself away from the others, in the house or courtyard, with her long term mate George. Beepbeep is doing her best to entice Sir Studly away with her flirtatious head bobbing and cheeky noises these days. Gabby has started to take an interest in her, so I am curious which one she will ultimately choose.
Oh, and names have finally stuck for our little twin teenage mallard girls: Betty and Boop. We can’t tell them apart, so at the moment they are a unit called Betty Boop. They are too small at the moment, but eventually I will fit them with different coloured ID bands. That will help in telling them apart.
The sun is shining around me, whilst I sit in the shade of my bright pink umbrella in Cafe du Canard. Our sunflowers that ring the enclosure have their faces turned towards the sun. Tiny birds are flitting about them, hanging from the flowers as they peck out the seeds.
Last year I tried harvesting the sunflower seeds and have decided it is a foraging job too far. So much effort for so little result. I like sunflower seeds, but they are not top of my list of favourite things to eat. Rather a side consideration. The birds however are so enamoured of them, I’ll leave the seeds to the professionals. Instead, I will take my enjoyment from sitting here and letting them distract me from what I am doing.