The Joys of Dog Walking

I'm standing very still near the banks of the river, and the woods are alive around me.
In the undergrowth, a pair of blue tits is bobbing about. Above them, a robin is singing his heart out. Over to my left, three long-tailed tits flit from branch to branch. Blackbirds fly low among the brambles, and in the very top of a tree, a crow looks down. A little further away, a woodpecker is drumming.
The sun is shining, turning the river a blinding, rippling silver. As I walk back along the Offa's Dyke Path (Islay somewhere in the distance ahead of me) I see dog's mercury springing up ('mercury' because it grows fast; 'dog's' because it isn't useful for anything). A little further along, I see my first violets of the year.