What Do You Listen For?

I can't remember how long ago it has been but in the recent past the minister at my church told a story that really stuck with me. The story goes along the lines of:

Two people are walking down a busy street in the city.
One says, "Oh! Do you hear the birds singing? What a lovely song!"
The second person says, "I only hear the traffic and talking. How do you hear the birds?"
The first person says, "Observe..." and takes a handful of change out and throws it into the air.
Suddenly all the people walking around stop and start searching the sidewalk for the change that just pinged.
The first person then says, "We hear what we listen for..."

I've started trying really hard to keep this in mind when I'm taking my walks with Leo in the afternoon. I focus on hearing the birds in the trees or the kids playing in the school yard a block over. I try really, REALLY hard to block out the sounds of traffic from the busy streets around my house. In doing this, I've started noticing more birds and think I might have to take up ornithology just to know what I've seeing.

It is great fun to watch the progress of the birds as they pass through the area as Spring approaches. Last week there was a slew of robins around, but they have moved on through to their next destination and in conjunction with the robins I was blessed to see a couple of cardinals. Currently, I'm seeing a lot of finches and sparrows, but they are always around; I don't care though because they are still fun to watch and listen for. Yesterday, I saw a Mississippi Kite, I think.

The only downside, is that it disturbs Leo when we are going along at a good clip and I stop to stare up at the trees or roofs, because HE is the one that is supposed to cause us to stop regularly while he sniffs at ground stuff...I guess we need to just coordinate our stops.

So, what are you listening for?

And, because I want to show off some of my work, here is a close up of a small quilt I recently completed: