What was a small but bright moment of your day?

That's awesome!

I went to see a friend of mine that I hadn't seen in like 7 months. As I park my car at his house, there's a group of like 5 wild turkeys in front of his house.

So I knock on the door, say hi and tell him "hey it's cool, I just saw wild turkeys!" and he's like "oh that's awesome, I've never seen a wild one" so I'm like "dude, they're in your backyard right now." He says "what!?".

He grabs both his kids and his gf and we all spent like 5 minutes just looking at them like 5 children. It was such a fun moment. :)

Then he's like sooo what's up? haha

Some birds of prey will use that as a trick to be able to stay in the same spot, unmoving, until they see prey and then swoop down. It's an incredible tactic.

My dog has learned to beg for more tummy tickles after you stop by flapping his paws. It's incredibly adorable

I have my alarm 15 before my gf's alarm, we both half wake up with mine, fully knowing we have time until her alarm, we basically cuddle every morning and I stroke her hair while she lies on my chest, it feels so nice and relaxing to wake up this way, I would not change it for anything.

Wow, that's almost the sort of experience you'd have 3 Inception layers deep. Cool!

My daughter and I read a 1970s version of Jack and the Beanstalk and as she's become an elder two year old, she's asked me to read all of the words rather than just making things up.

Anyway, its a far scarier book when you pace things, discuss bone grinding and bread making etc. I looked at her multiple times and she's covering her eyes. Lol. So precious.

Getting to see my kids first thing in the morning after they wake up and come down for breakfast.

One of the reasons I'm grateful to work from home and have a position with flexibility. I can pause my work for ~10 minutes to get them breakfast and I can take a minute here or there as they eat tell me about their dreams/what they want to do at school.

My youngest had her birthday and one of the gifts she really wanted was a portable CD player. So i got her one along with a couple CDs from her favorite artist. It was fun having her ask things like "Do I need to flip the CD to hear the other songs?" and just explain the features of a CD player.

Today? I was looking at houses and the first house had all kinds of cute mushrooms: there was a fairy ring, some sort of parasols with perfectly flat tops, cute puff balls. There was a very cute squirrel: tiny, stripes, exactly like Chip and Dale except with fluffy long tail.

Recurring: my flock of white emden geese would sit like tiny swan boats on the lush green grass, wind rustling the fine green blades, and when they, prey animals, feel safe and contended enough to fall asleep together like that in the sun, it just exudes tranquility. If they're awake, sometimes one will sort of cock its head and look skyward. Follow its gaze and you will find maybe an extremely distant plane, or a wild bird soaring way way way up in the sky. If multiple geese are looking, quick, it might be a cool raptor!

For several years now I've made a habit of bringing peanuts wherever I go to throw some at the local jackdaws. I also feed them with müsli and peanuts on the roof outside my bedroom window. They're not very trusting animals, but they understand consistency and now expect me to give them food. When I'm working from home, several times a day I'll see their heads pop up in the window while I'm walking past the bedroom, peeking cautiously at me. Then they move aside to let me open. Great waking up and seeing a tiny head in the window side-eyeing you.

The best part of this is that I have started recognizing some of them as well. At a casual glance they might seem very much alike, but they have distinct body languages, small spots of leucism in particular places, distinct calls, different styles of interacting with the other jackdaws, different battle wounds or defects, different levels of caution and so on. So just watching and feeding them you start piecing together which one is which, at least some of them. I see them growing up and I notice when they're gone.

I take photographs and have also started painting jackdaws in acrylic on canvas. It's the only subject I paint, really. There's a jackdaw subreddit I follow. I watch and rewatch jackdaw documentaries. I casually browse scientific papers on jackdaws. I'll image search for jackdaws to see if any new photos pop up in the results. I have a jackdaw desktop wallpaper.

Not exactly the small daily bright moment kind of stuff, but just to set up how much I love jackdaws.

Today I've fed two of my old favorites. The first one from my window. We have this habit that between pouring out some piles of müsli, I'll hold up and show a peanut, then place it on a railing that passes outside the window. It'll walk over and pick it up and then jump back to eat at a safe distance. We've had this habit since summer, and it's repeated most days and usually more than once a day.

I fed the other one outside the local store. I rode my bicycle there and the birds just came flying, landing all around me. The most aggressively food-wanting one is my favorite. It sounds like it has a bit of a throat problem, the usual call coming out sounding more like a sneeze. That seemingly makes it more eager to call out directly at me than the other birds are. It did, then expertly catching the peanut I threw in its general direction with a snap. It's like Michael Jackson throwing a coin at a jukebox except the jukebox does all the work.

Reading these made me so happy.

I saw a cormorant swimming under water today on my swim. It's really disorienting seeing birds swim underwater and I love it, they look so goofy. I think it's like the 3rd time I've seen it and feels like a real treat. I haven't been able to get outside or swim much in the last few months so it felt like a little "welcome back".

My cup of coffee really hit today. Sometimes when the brew is just right it's a beautiful moment.

Something I 3D printed (third-party design I downloaded) worked the first time and fit the purpose I needed perfectly.

Walked by a stinging insect today that was flying around my porch. Over the past months I've slowly been able to overcome a big fear of them, and being able to quietly and non-reactively still deal with them without an overwhelming fear reaction, makes every one of these moments a success and proof the fear has been overcome, because I used to be frozen by my fear every time

Small, but powerful joys

As a person who works generally solo and generally has minimal interactions within the company(i.e. I had 1 work mate who had been single for 6 months and didn't know and another whose wife was 8months pregnant and didn't know either), I had an external training day with some people I get along well with. So while not much social chit chat, some interesting conversations and jokes were had.

I have two dogs. The older one will usually wander over to my side of the bed after I turn the lights out and put his head on the bed next to me until I pet him for a bit. Then he goes back to his bed and goes to sleep. The newer puppy is less than a year old and had never done that... until last night! After I laid down in bed, she came over to me, and I pet her for a bit before she wandered off to bed. Small thing, but it definitely put a smile on my face.

Friend and I live in different states and for our scheduled gaming hangouts we chatted and took pictures of birds (Flock Around-https://store.steampowered.com/app/3618030/Flock_Around/)and shared the fun picks with each other. Good way to pass the time

I had to get up Monday morning and drive five hours for a work trip, and my daughter, all on her own, got up at 5 am and packed me a lunch/snack bag. Turned out to be important because Google took me the wrong way, so I did not have time to stop for lunch. My heart is still warm f from that.

In the bird space, the work event had a falconry tour/experience that includes getting to hold a falcon and see a Harris hawk do its thing up close. Pretty amazing.

Love this topic!

There was some incredible fog over the city this weekend. Mixture of long gigantic snakes of fog slowly drifting across the city and bright blue skies everywhere else. Felt really magical.

I thought about my plan to quit my job in January. Just the thought of it fills me with glee and a feeling similar to ecstasy. Just proves how difficult things have been lately.

I love these little moments, last night I saw a white owl fly by followed immediately by a little coyote running off into the woods. Just felt special.

One of my dogs is more clingy than the other. Today I worked from home and I have an odd chair that I use, one of those kneeling chairs. She usually sleeps on the dog bed next to my desk, but today she forced her way at my feet, under this small weird chair, and managed to lie down there. I had to be very careful as the chair also rocks, so I was worried she’d get her ear under there. But it was ok. It was very sweet of her and it gives me joy when she chooses to be so close.

Yesterday, I used a laser engraver for the first time. Very small, very bright light! But more to the spirit of the question, it's always pretty neat using a new machine for the first time.

Two new classes of students studying English here in Japan today. First class, last girl leaving had a guitar so we chatted in English, as I played guitar could check out her axe (a very nice Epiphone Les Paul).

Last class of the day was a small class of repeating students and one of the boys rides motorbikes, as do I, so he perked right up when we talked about that.

Small moments of connection in a different language.

You know those little baby Zoidberg looking bugs that are often in basements or around damp areas? They're super cute the way they bumble around and totally harmless. Anyway, they're called isopods (land shrimps) and I discovered today that they are a common pet and come in a variety of colours like Sakura pink, Rubber Ducky, and even Dairy Cow!

My wife absolutely hates bugs but I love em and thought this was an incredibly cute thing to come across.

Edit: these also weren't like, irresponsible influencer terrariums - people seemed to actually put a lot of care and effort into raising the cute little buggers.

Pretty regularly a friend and I will make coffee together. Maybe an espresso shot, a pour over, or aeropress. If it’s late we’ll do decaf. My family does this for holidays as well, often around 9 or 10pm with a little Bailey’s in it.

I live in a fairly dense city and work in a high rise. Some days I love just looking out the window and just marveling at the city around me. The city I live in is far from perfect but it's still a city and I just marvel at the fact that humans were able to build things at this scale. Massive bridges connecting the city to other landmasses, tall skyscrapers that let you see from miles on end, the grid of the city adapting to the topography of the land underneath it. It's just so cool to me.

I was walking down the street today, and I heard "hey! Fuck you!" to my left. That's not exactly uncommon, the area I work in has a lot of mentally ill people on the streets and I've been shouted at a lot. I turned and it was a guy holding two middle fingers up at me, who I recognized.

Turns out it was this guy I was friends with in the Army with and hadn't seen in a few years. He's a lawyer that works in the area now.

(And yeah, that was a pretty normal way for him to greet me when we were in together).