Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Out and about on Dartmoor and I'm very blessed because my neighbour's dogs,
Who are out for a walk,
Have run up to say hello.
Here's Eddie with his stick imploring me to throw it,
Which I'm not allowed to do.
This is Ollie.
They're all springer spaniels,
Liver and white.
And here's old Betty,
The matriarch of the clan.
Hello!
I feel very honoured that they've come up to say hello to me.
And,
Oh,
They're just rushing away now,
Back to be walked home.
I love seeing the dogs out and about,
As you know.
And actually it's apt really because this is a blessing,
The blessing of animals feels quite strong with me today.
And I'm just going to bend over and give Betty here this beautiful spaniel,
Springer spaniel she is,
Old lady.
Just give her a little scratch on the back of her neck.
There we go,
She's off now,
That's all she wanted was a bit of attention.
But it is animals that have been really important for me today.
Walking across Dartmoor,
There are semi-wild ponies,
Dartmoor ponies,
Very hardy animals,
And they are scattered across the landscape.
And there's a piebald,
Which is a little pony,
A little foal,
That has been,
Um,
I just sort of noticed it over the last few days.
And every time I've seen it,
It's been very skittish,
Running away from me.
I think sometimes it's part playful,
Partly because it's got so much energy,
But it's,
It's a beautiful,
Beautiful little foal.
And today it was lying down and it saw me approach.
I wasn't going up to it,
I was just on a footpath near it.
And this time it didn't run away.
I just felt like,
Oh,
I felt very honoured that it,
It,
It's seen me as,
Um,
Non-threatening.
And so that was another experience.
So I've had dogs that have just said hello.
I've had the foal,
Which has just kind of accepted me as part of the landscape now.
And then earlier on,
As I was walking up the path,
I saw a bird,
Which I didn't recognise,
A very small bird.
And it looked a little bit like a chaffinch,
But it wasn't a chaffinch.
And it perched on a branch ahead of me.
And I paused and I just made a note of it,
Little black head,
A white collar and a sort of reddish brown body.
And then I thought,
I'll just check to see what this is,
See if I can work it out.
And so I took out my phone and worked it out and found out that I was face to face with a stone chat.
Now I've heard stone chats on Dartmoor.
They are very distinctive.
Their call is like they are clattering two stones together.
So I've heard them time and time again.
And when I've seen them on Dartmoor,
They've always been too far away to see up close.
And so I felt really honoured that this little stone chat had settled in the bush above my head and was quite unperturbed that I was looking at trying to work out what it actually was.
And for me,
These encounters with animals are incredibly special.
They are a reminder for me,
It feels like they're a message for me,
A reminder to sink back into that natural space within me,
That space of who I truly am,
The energy of life,
That which connects us all.
And I have to say as well that I also understand that nature,
By its very existence,
Is not all peace and calm and harmony.
On the contrary,
Everything I see around me is either going to be eaten by something or will eat something in order to survive.
The birds are a great example.
Seeing the little birds on the bird feeders outside my window is one thing,
But I also know that when I see the buzzards,
Which is a hawk bird,
When I see that circling overhead,
It's actually looking for those little birds to feed on.
So everything is either food or is going to be looking for food.
And for me though,
That doesn't take away this very special connection with realising that I am part of this whole fabric of nature,
This whole cloth that is woven of all these different animals and creatures that are on this earth and plants,
And I am part of that cloth.
And there feels like something quite humbling and sacred about that.
For me in this moment,
I feel so grateful to be present to this message.
