Yesterday morning I was walking in the forest (no, not looking for mushrooms) checking out the tree branches with an eye peeled for Owl. As usual. It had been almost exactly a year since I’ve spotted one. Walking along the loop trail I became aware of a commotion up ahead – a group of birds, swooping and yelling, clearly very upset. I stopped and without even bothering to scan the trees or look through my binoculars, I reached into my bag, pulled out my camera and changed to my long lens. I knew exactly what I’d find.

It’s always a thrill. I hung around watching and photographing the action for a long time. There were several songbird species coming in to sound the alarm, they were seriously pissed off and didn’t let up on harassing that owl. Not for a minute. They screamed and yelled, always on the move, flying from one branch to another, perching on branches as close as they dared, getting up into the owl’s face and even flying in close to peck the owl on the head. The owl moved perch three times but other than that sat there looking completely unperturbed, ignoring them while scanning the ground below.

While I was standing there a family came walking along the trail towards me. Among them were two young sisters, maybe aged about 9 and 11, and as they passed behind me I heard the youngest speaking earnestly to the other about what needed to be done to help the planet. She was describing the packaging of a loaf of bread she’d seen that had a cardboard tie instead of a plastic one, and how important that was. As they passed she looked at me and I smiled.

Her mother came along then with other members of the family and stopped to see what I was doing. I pointed out what was going on, gave them my binoculars and stepped aside. The girls doubled back and there were then three generations of this family watching owl and the other birds, passing the binoculars back and forth between them, phone cameras out (the mother took a picture with her phone through the binocs). They were all thrilled and it was a delight to see them share my own feelings about it. As they were leaving I told the sisters, who were beside themselves with excitement, to make sure that they listened to the birds when they were in the forest as you never know what you might find.

As they left, I turned to watch them go and heard the youngest sister say to her family “I love life!”

I thought my already ecstatic heart would explode. THERE’s our future.