Shadows.
Except for a week on Monhegan during fall migration, I’ve hiked Beech Hill with my dog every day for more than a year. Blizzards, mud, rain, raindows, a couple days when I worried about getting hit by lightning. Crazy good birding some days, and no birds at all on others. Like today.
Inland hills.
Today, though, was noteworthy for one thing. It was kind of cold.
So far, this winter has been remarkably warm and snowless. This morning dawned bright and chilly, with temperatures in the 20s (F). I didn’t get around to asking Jack where his leash was until late in it, about 4:30. But the photoperiod lengthens, and the sky remained bright. I took a peek at the outside thermometer, which showed temps in the teens. Saw no evidence of wind in the branches of the pines up the hill, but I decided to bundle up anyway, just in case.
I was wrong about the wind. It was whipping. And our hike was a quick one. Ascending, I felt the wind at my back and so braced myself for a bone-chill on the way back down. But even on the way up, and even wearing gloves, I began to lose the feeling in my fingers.
Jack didn’t seem to mind much. He trotted along, sniffing occasionally, pausing to squirt here and there. I grabbed a couple photos, we circled the hut, we started down into the wind. I had two hoods up, but still felt the sort of pain in my eyebrows that comes from eating ice cream too quickly on a hot day. Walked fast. Into the wind. Until Jack insisted on stopping to drop one trailside. Which meant, of course, I had to pull off my gloves to manipulate the poop bag. Jeez.
The bay.
It only takes a half-hour or less to hike the open trail, so it’s not a life-or-death proposition. However, it does sometimes—like today—feel like a sort of endurance challenge. Just how much discomfort can I put myself through? I might just as well join a polar bear club or something.
Back home, all warmed up, I got to thinking of the history of humanity. (It seems the older you get, the farther back you can see.) My train of thought went something like this: Good thing I’ve got heat. What if my heat failed? What about people that have no heat on an evening like this? What about people centuries ago, back before the Industrial Revolution, who had to concoct their own heat through the labor of felling trees and cutting limbs and tending a fire all winter? What of the humans of a few thousands of years ago, back in the last ice age, who had to tend a campfire and sleep all bundled together with their dogs in some primitive sort of shelter? And had to have stocked up for the cold? And stitched together skins for clothing? What of Ötzi the Iceman, who wore a bearskin hat and fancy (for 4,000 years ago) leather shoes? For how long did we suffer winter like that, in relative comfort, grateful for our “discovery” of fire?
Yes, even as we emerge slowly from the last ice age, much of our planet remains uncomfortably cold. But its spin and tilt keeps the temperatures rising and falling here where we live among earth’s other creatures, in our little sheath of atmosphere.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:30 p.m., I hiked the open trail.
(No birds seen or heard on the hill today.)
Elsewhere
1. American crow
Tags: American crow
