Foliage.
Sometimes if you look and listen closely, you can sense more than what you see and hear. Combine your senses with your memory of past observations, and you might make accurate predictions. Or even tell the future. Then again, sometimes you’re wholly surprised. This combination of perception and magic can make for a miraculous kind of day.
Sphinx caterpillar.
I took care of a little early morning business this cool, cloudless, blue-sky day, then I took off to do some midday errands. Haircut, grocery shopping. Things were kind of quiet for a Friday before a long weekend. And the sun was warm, so I took off early on a bike ride.
Town birds included gulls, pigeons, house sparrows. Heading back north on Route 1, coming up Powerhouse Hill, I noticed a big bird soaring overhead and slowed to make an ID. While I was at it, I took my eyes off the road long enough to veer into the guardrail and abrade my lower leg a little. No big deal. The bird was (as I’d thought it might be) an osprey. Then as I began to pedal again, I happened to spot a large green caterpillar headed across the shoulder toward the travel way. Some kind of sphinx moth larva, I imagine—had a horn on its tail. I whipped out my cell phone and snapped a couple photos before rolling it back toward the road-edge. It curled up and flipped about. Had I not stopped to look up, I would’ve looked down and experienced this minor miracle.
Cedar waxwing.
Later, hiking Beech Hill with Jack, I neither heard nor saw a bird for the first few hundred yards or so. But as we moved up alongside the first clearing, I recalled that waxwings like to perch in the tips of the oaks to the left of us, so I scanned—and there it was, same oak, same perch as yesterday. Just then I met some folks I’d met earlier in the year on the hill, and we stopped to chat. As we spoke, I wondered if there might be another waxwing on another tree along the wood-edge, so my eyes sort of wandered in that direction. There it was.
Soon after, I heard the song of a yellowthroat. Then, about half-way up, as I turned to take a picture of the photogenic trail-side birch, I couldn’t help but see a tree down the slope whose foliage had gone mostly red. A sign—not-so-subtle, perhaps—of impending change.
Over and down toward our berry patch, descending through the trees, I spotted movement in the brush and turned quickly to look. All I saw was a fruit-laden blackberry bush (one I hadn’t noticed before) kind of swaying slightly. Some bird had been perched up there, dining. We stayed a while to look and listen but didn’t see or hear a thing, so we proceeded down to munch on a few berries of our own. Saw the tail feathers of a silent catbird down there.
Blackberries.
Returning, I slowed as we approached the curve through the trees where the blackberry bush grew. A rustle of wings in there, and then I heard it—the quay! note of a hermit thrush. I might’ve guessed a thrush would (like me) appreciate blackberries.
Back home, this cool evening, at dusk, I stood on the deck for a few minutes watching the crows bed down. Bold, garrulous birds during bright hours, in evening they go completely silent—just large fleeting dark shapes moving low through the foliage. All you hear is the sound of moving branches and whispering leaves.
Tonight is another starry one. Crickets out there still. Jupiter rising.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:15 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
1. Cedar waxwing
2. Common yellowthroat (voice)
3. American crow
4. American goldfinch (voice)
5. Gray catbird
6. Savannah sparrow (voice)
7. Hermit thrush (voice)
8. Black-capped chickadee (voice)
Elsewhere
9. Herring gull
10. Mourning dove
11. Rock pigeon
12. House sparrow
13. Osprey
14. Northern cardinal
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, black-capped chickadee, Cedar waxwing, common yellowthroat, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, osprey, rock pigeon, savannah sparrow
