Red-tailed hawk.
I can hardly imagine two more different days in a row: from still, foggy, almost balmy to windy, clear, and cold. Sunlight blazed onto the bare fall landscape this morning, and great gusts rattled the windows. I got into The Zone at my desk somehow and didn’t look up until the sun had begun its descent. Time for a quick hike up Beech Hill.
The open trail.
At least I dressed for it. Long undershirt, heavy sweater, insulated sweatshirt with a hood. Even remembered to bring my gloves. All Jack got was his hunter’s orange vest—but I don’t think he much minded.
Not too much wind at the base of the trail, but I could hear the big sound of it from the deep distance. As we turned and ascended out into the open, things got interesting.
A brilliant landscape of azure and brown and yellow-gold. A few clouds in the far sky. Same as yesterday, I didn’t expect much in the way of birds—but (same as yesterday) right away I saw one, a large bird soaring high in the blue above the southern slope. It looked dark against the bright sky, and at first I figured it for a raven. Its body was oriented west, into the wind, and it simply sailed there, not flapping its wings at all. I snapped off a bunch of photos. It just sailed there. For at least a minute, a minute and a half it soared.
Only later, when I looked at the photos, did I see it was a red-tailed hawk.
Southwest ridge.
Not very far up the slope, I began to dread the return trip: the wind was whipping hard at the back of us, flipping up the bottom of Jack’s vest. I lifted my hood as tree leaves skittered up the trail ahead of us. A herd of clouds clung low to the southwest ridge, where the setting sun hung; the little lone windmill spun fast atop the ridge. At first glimpse of it, I could see that the bay was whipped into a rough froth of waves. I spotted a couple gulls out there wheeling in the voluptuous air, and the blades of Vinalhaven’s three wind turbines were circling, I’m sure, as fast as they could go.
We took refuge for a few moments on the porch of Beech Nut, listening to the rush of the wind in the spruce grove then headed back down.
Sure enough, it was a memorable descent, straight into the maw of the wind. Great gusts—40-mile-an-hour gusts, would be my guess—kept blowing my hood off. Pain in my face. I found myself moving quickly, nearly jogging along the exposed straight stretch of trail, and Jack began leaping and looking at me expectantly, as if we were about to engage in some exciting form of play.
Hurricane Island.
But despite the sting of the wind, I didn’t really mind. I felt alive, living in the present moment. Able to move and breathe and endure. And, anyway, it didn’t take long to reach the more-or-less sheltered lower trail, where the limbs of the hardwoods along the road swayed and clattered, and the wind up there rushed and howled. No way could I hear crow, or jay, or chickadee.
Still, it felt good, I must confess, to be sitting in front of the heater vents as we ran a bunch of errands in town, Jack and I. I saw a little flock of starlings.
Tonight is painfully clear. In the black of the sky I can see stars and Jupiter and several miles-high jetliners with lights flashing. Gusts are raising invisible clouds of rustling, scattering leaves.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 2:45 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Red-tailed hawk
2. Herring gull
Elsewhere
3. American crow
4. Blue jay
5. European starling
Sundown.
