Stringfellow Hawke

Yesterday was sunny and 64 degrees which is warm for here at this time of year. Allyn and I both noticed the ominous shadow of a large bird circling over the back field. I went outside to look. It was a red tailed hawk flying very low and slow. The swallows were not amused.

Like the geese, bluebirds, swallows, and many other species, the raptors migrate in the spring and fall. And they are back. There is a hill behind our house, and on windy days the raptors utilize the thermals there to glide over the surrounding countryside. They have been a part of our life here on the other side of the creek for many years. As a matter of fact, at one time there was a red tailed hawk that used to perch on a fence post in the back near the asparagus patch, not 50 yards from our house. He was named Stringfellow after a television character from that era, Stringfellow Hawke.

wild geese

One of the few instances of relative normalcy in recent weeks has been driving to Sissy's in Middletown Springs for their wonderful takeout dinners. Some of you have been there. Heading south towards Middletown Springs I pass the headwaters of the Ira creek. As I drove past a field at the Shapiro horse farm, I saw a Canada goose sitting on her nest along a quiet section of the stream. I remember seeing that same scene last spring, presumably the same goose.

The return of the wild geese in the spring, heading north, is one of the highlights of the season here in the north country; the unimaginably large v-shaped patterns cutting through the blue sky. Their cries are the essence of wildness.

I never realized that some of the geese actually stopped nearby and raised their families here instead of on the Canadian tundra. You have to keep looking. You never know what you're going to see and learn.

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

swallows!

I guess this is going to be avian week here on the other side of the creek. Noticed the other day that the swallows have returned to the back field. My interest in birds has similarities to my interest in the world of sports. In sports you can pick your heroes and villains, and there doesn't need to be any logical or rational reasoning behind those selections. I feel the same way about the birds; there are good birds and there are bad birds even though they are all really doing the same thing, using their abilities and instincts to survive. The swallows are among the "good" birds. They embody grace and elegance in everything they do. They are amazingly acrobatic fliers and gliders. It is just a joy to watch swallows be swallows.

old photo from flickr

We don't see things as they are, 

we see them as we are.

The Talmud

Page-a-day calendar on gratitude

bluebird season

In case you didn't know, the theme of this blog is counting all of the "seasons," large and small, here in Vermont. Conventional wisdom says there are four seasons, but in a place like this there are many more than that. In some places there are actually less than four; as far as I'm concerned, places like California and Brazil have two seasons, rainy and dry.

The change of seasons here is very stark. Phenomena arrive, are here for awhile and then depart; replaced by something else. This impermanence is made manifest via a number of different aspects of the natural world; flowers, weather, seasonal constellations, and birds. There have been birds here on the other side of the creek throughout the cold season, but not many. With the warming of the weather, the birds of summer are starting to arrive.

The bluebirds returned a number of weeks ago.

We have been fortunate enough to have bluebirds nesting here for many years. I have become very attached to them for better or for worse. For years the bluebirds grappled with house sparrows, and I did my best to try to protect the bluebirds mostly in terms of where I put the bluebird houses. In recent years the sparrow threat has abated only to be replaced by the house wrens. Last year was the first year in many years that we didn't have any baby bluebirds here. The house wrens took over. I have moved the bluebird house away from the old site to a more open space in the field in the back which the bluebirds prefer, and the house wrens avoid. I also read that if you put up some "dummy" birdhouses, the house wrens will spend time filling them up with sticks to discourage competition. I read that if you regularly empty said houses of the sticks there, the house wrens will spend time filling them up again, and theoretically this will keep them from bothering the bluebirds. That is my plan for this year. I put up a couple of these houses in another field the other day. We'll see how it goes.

leaves

If you live in a place like California, Florida, or Brazil, leaves are something you can take for granted. They are always there although some of the leaves you can see in Brazil are pretty amazing.

Spring is coming to the north country, and leaves are starting to emerge.

The willow trees are the first to start greening up in Vermont. They are also the last to lose their leaves in the fall.

And saying that the trees "green up" is not totally accurate. The maple trees start out with a reddish tinge which is their equivalent of blossoms.

Some trees like the crabapples start with blossoms first and then come the leaves. Others like the lilacs start with leaves first followed by blossoms. Maybe some of the Vt. state biologists like Doug and Kim can weigh in on what's going on here.

It's been a long winter. It's great to see the return of geese, red-winged blackbirds, wildflowers...and leaves.

Instruction on Not Giving Up

Ada Limon, 1976

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out

of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's

almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving

their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate 

sky of spring rains, it's the greening of the trees

that really gets to me. When all the shock of white

and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets, leave

the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,

the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin

growing over whatever winter did to us, a return

to the strange idea of continuous living despite

the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,

I'll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf

unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I'll take it all.

Thanks, Millie!

Bloodroot

Another sunny and brisk spring day. Went out to the back field and cleaned up an elm tree that had fallen back in the fall. I put some of the dead branches along the stone wall there and saw this.

Bloodroot emerging through the dried leaves. One of my favorites.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Simone Weil
Page-a-day calendar on gratitude

Springtime in Vt.

speckled

Walking the crossroads on a brisk and sunny day. Crows calling to each other as they ride the wind. A squirrel chewing on its breakfast somewhere in the woods. Ramps are "ramping" up in the usual places.

Theoretically this is a native food source, roughly a cross between garlic and onion. I had some...once.

Leaves of the trout lily are also shooting up there. No blossoms yet.

This plant gets its name from the variegated patterns on the leaves. Like a speckled Vermont brook trout.

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

Diane Ackerman

Page a day calendar on gratitude

Coltsfoot, bluets, crocuses, and daffodils emerging from a long hibernation.

So, apparently, is this blog.