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I have, in my fifties, begun to care more than I ever thought I would, about the simple joy of seeing and hearing birds in my environment. After spending nearly a year living in a loft without any immediate outdoor access from my apartment, I recently moved to a smaller space but one with a large porch and my quality of life has increased in so many ways. There are other elements to this new place that help (two bedrooms so that I can have a dedicated office and more closet space), but the biggest element of my joy here is being able to sit outside in the mornings when I have my morning coffee and hear the bird song and watch the chimney swifts dart and glide, hear the cooing of mourning doves and watch a pair of bluejays hassle a crow, and see the cool circling of some kind of hawk high above all the others as they ride the thermals. This morning saw a few geese flying and my current list of birds that I see from my porch include mourning doves, robins, chimney swifts, blue jays, crows (who have yet to do anything with the peanuts I have set out for them in hopes of making a crow friend), cardinals (though not as plentiful), and what I think is a European starling. The raptors that I’m unsure about are some form of hawk but I haven’t been able to see clearly enough to figure out which one.
While I don’t stay out on my porch for hours at time (the temps of Arkansas in spring and summer have a lot to do with that), those 15-20 minutes at the start of the day are so very precious to me. Far more than I realized until I moved to my previous apartment. Going forward I certainly know that this simple ability to sit outside and see some trees (even if interspersed with buildings) and some sky are non-negotiable elements of my living situations if I want to have a certain level of emotional grounding and joy in my days.
I do sometimes sit out at other times during the day, but it is the mornings that are most important to my emotional well-being and that are precious to me.