"They walked down the hill and leaned on the bridge to watch the stream run into the lake. She always remembered how, in the fields, the rabbits showed white scuts and undercoats as they played, and the geese shone like pearls in the mud and a gull over the lake showed white wings as it turned to the shore. She always remembered those small shining pieces of white."
This quote from the novel Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden is one of my favorite quotes about the Irish countryside. It's so true: amongst all the greens and browns and blues come these bright small white shining creatures - usually, for me, birds - the wild geese and the swans and seagulls. Their livingness informs my livingness.