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A soft mouse carcass, its sway as I carry it out late last night, the little pitter-pat as it lands in last falls leaves, tossed by me out in the underbrush beyond the dogs' run -- that's what's on my mind as I rise sleepily, hopeful for a little sunlight. None at first. It's cool, about 40 degrees (F), with blackbirds and a song sparrow and evidence of budding tree leaves. Three or four ringnecked ducks in the pond.
But before long, the sun emerges into a small patch of eastern blue: a brilliant sun, after so long hidden, reflecting with a splash off the breeze-dimpled water. A few gulls fly high, high. More interestingly, four killdeers fly over the north side of the house with their little flip-flip wingbeats, emitting a couple screams. The mourning dove sings from his utility line. Clouds soon overtake the sun, alas. The morning gets colder with age, and midday has a nip in the moving air. Gulls on the move. A crow in the fringes. Ringnecks still -- diving, diving. The day passes fast, with clocks artificially accelerated, and a wide, cloudy sky moving slowly eastward, out to sea, blanketing the islands, with their returning sea ducks and ripening mudflats and crabs and deer and seals. Tonight the thermometer dips below 40. I think of a little scrap of hardening fur out in the underbrush, a stone's throw away. |
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| Bird Report is a discursive daily record of what's outside my high north window in Rockland, Maine, USA (44°07'N latitude, 69°07'W longitude). --Brian Willson | |||||
©1998 by 3IP |