Savannah sparrow.
Every morning is different.
Oh, sometimes I wonder if I’m stuck in a rut: within fifteen minutes of rising, I’ll head up to Beech Hill with Jack, walk the trails, take a few photos, and, on returning, make breakfast then head downstairs to work. I’ll break for lunch and, weather permitting, ride my bike in the afternoon. In evening, after dinner, I’ll write stuff like this.
Beech Nut in fog.
Sometimes I wonder.
The bird species I list up there are pretty much the same every day. My best photos tend to be of savannah sparrows lately—the most cooperative posers. I bet I could close my eyes and describe every meter of every mile of any Beech Hill trail.
But then something subtle happens to blow up this crazy idea.
This morning my world was cloaked in fog. Nice, for its cooling effect. Mesmerizing, on account of there blew a pretty stout breeze, and the wisps and puffs flew smoothly by, hiding things then revealing them then hiding them again. Other-worldly, in that such a great low cloud muffles distant sound while amplifying nearby birdsong and altogether shifting the usual state of things. Coming up the wooded trail, the breeze shook loose from the trees droplets in the understory, and you might’ve thought it’d just rained. Humid still, but the sun and heat of yesterday had gone. This was a wholly different world.
Hermit thrush.
Moreover, the order I in which I list birds shifts from day to day. Today’s first voice came from the throat of an ovenbird, very near. The next voice I heard was a flicker’s—not an everyday bird, and certainly never before a No. 2 bird. Then I saw a crow. A silent crow. Sitting on a branch of one of the maples in the newly cleared sugar bush. Just sitting there. Usually I hear crows, or I’ll see them in flight. Or they’ll be sitting on a stone up in the open fields near the summit. Or sometimes in fall I’ll see dozens of crows—scores of them, a hundred—collecting down one slope or another in their annual autumn conventions. This solitary crow broke all those rules.
Everything is fleeting. Nothing is permanent. And that fact is not all bad.
Savannah sparrow.
Coming back up the open trail, it occurred to me that this particular walk, this particular hillside, this exact day of the year and exact time of day—the fog cloaking the islands, the herring gull flying solo between the summit and Chickawakee Lake, the combination of the voices of catbird and towhee and savannah sparrow—had never before occurred and never would again. A unique present moment.
Just then Jack turned back and looked up at me, panting.
Descending the wooded trail, I said, “Wait.” We stopped. The sun had come out and sunlight filtered through the summer canopy and illuminated a forest floor full of moss and mushrooms and old leaves and fallen acorns. I listened. As usual in that location (truth be told, the reason I stopped), I heard the miraculous fountain of notes of a hermit thrush. In the distance, the clear-note/buzzy-note call of a black-throated green warbler (also dependable). The ascending buzz of a black-throated blue (rarer). And, much farther away, the moan of the fog whistle out in the harbor.
Nothing ever sounded like that before.
We like to be able to depend on things. We like thinking our lives are built on rock. But in fact, nothing is permanent. And I have to say it makes me smile to think that’s the way it is.
Impermanence.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 7:00 a.m., I walked all trails.
1. Ovenbird (voice)
2. Northern flicker (voice)
3. American crow
4. Eastern towhee
5. Veery
6. Red-eyed-vireo (voice)
7. American robin
8. Common yellowthroat
9. Gray catbird (voice)
10. American goldfinch
11. Black-capped chickadee
12. Chestnut-sided warbler
13. Cedar waxwing
14. Mourning dove
15. Field sparrow (voice)
16. Savannah sparrow
17. Hermit thrush
18. Blue jay (voice)
19. White-throated sparrow (voice)
20. Chipping sparrow (voice)
21. Purple finch (voice)
22. Black-billed cuckoo (voice)
23. Tree swallow
24. Herring gull
25. Tufted titmouse (voice)
26. Black-throated green warbler (voice)
27. Black-throated blue warbler (voice)
Elsewhere
28. Northern cardinal
29. Red-winged blackbird
30. House sparrow
Future berries.
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-billed cuckoo, black-capped chickadee, black-throated blue warbler, black-throated green warbler, blue jay, Cedar waxwing, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, field sparrow, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern flicker, ovenbird, purple finch, red-eyed vireo, red-winged blackbird, savannah sparrow, tree swallow, tufted titmouse, veery, white-throated sparrow
