Still life.
Early this morning, clouds cloaked all but the eastern fringe of sky, a condition that created a sort of odd reality—bright angular sunlight illuminating a bare winter landscape rightfully obnubilated by overcast. Not much wind. The temperature when first I looked was 30 degrees (F). It wasn’t long before I heard the riotous, rousing spring song of a house finch coming from the trees above the deck. And the mild alarm calls of chickadees. (Always chickadees.)
American crow.
By mid-morning, the clouds had dispersed and the day had warmed to nearly 40, so I opened the door to the little sun room out front to bring a little solar heat into the place. Glanced out onto Route 1—and saw that one of the local gray squirrels had just died on the center line. Crows were already picking at its brains, miraculously avoiding traffic.
Speaking of the crows, I heard a burst of cawing at about 2 p.m. and though, Here he comes. The jogging man. I got a fairly good look at his routine today, and I think it might be breakfast cereal he lays out for the birds. Crows and a gull or two. Mostly crows.
Sort of a bland day, really. Again more time indoors than I’d prefer, but again I managed a trip to town in mid-afternoon. Gulls, pigeons, starlings—the usual. And again I passed the red-shouldered hawk’s domain but saw no sign of the bird. (I did see a downy woodpecker bounce through the air across the road in front of me.) After errands I drove as if mesmerized to Beech Hill. For the past few years I’ve had trouble staying away from that place.
I arrived about 4, admired (with some alarm) the clearing project near the parking lot—where only sugar maples have survived the saw—and proceeded at a brisk pace along the upper trail.
Just a lovely hillside. Mostly hardwoods, oak and maple and birch and popple, a few pines and spruce toward the top. I walked as silently as I could on crunchy snow, I scanned for movement but saw none beyond the slight fluttering of last fall’s diehard leaves.
Red oak.
While descending the lower trail, I slowed my pace. I stopped. I listened. In the far distance, a dog’s bark. Toward the east, the vague rush of traffic on Route 1 below. The faint scrapings of the leaves of red oaks above me. An approaching jet, still miles away. I stood motionless (except for my turning head) for at least five minutes. No hint of a bird, but plenty to listen to—the air, the trees, the thaw.
A hundred yards or so below I stopped again. After a minute or so I heard what sounded like a soft rapping sound from off the trail uphill from me. A woodpecker perhaps, or a nuthatch or chickadee. Slowly, I strode through still-deep snow fifty paces in that direction. Listened. No sign of it now. Just the quiet ambience of a mixed wood in winter.
Today’s List
House finch
Black-capped chickadee
American crow
Herring gull
Ring-billed gull
Rock pigeon
European starling
Downy woodpecker
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, downy woodpecker, European starling, herring gull, house finch, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon
