October 14: Bird Flurry

Some days I won't see a bird at the feeders all day and then suddenly a flurry of them will arrive all at once. Several species have a tendency to travel in packs, and these mixed flocks will travel around in loose affiliation looking for food--be it in the form of feeders, berry bushes, seed-bearing grasses, or a hatch of flies. The advantage to this seemingly cooperative behavior is not so much altruism as the fact that more eyes can more efficiently find food and keep a look out for potential threats. 

Birders on the prowl will listen for chickadees and then see what else is tagging along with these vocal, gregarious little birds. Or you might hear a birder imitate the whinnying call of a screech owl, which serves the purpose of drawing in chickadees--who hope to scold and harass the owl into leaving the area--and their tagalong cohorts. Sometimes these can be interesting warblers or sparrows passing through, or more often local residents like the downy woodpecker.  

The flock that usually hits my feeders includes chickadees and titmice, and occasionally some goldfinches, a nuthatch or two, and maybe a cardinal. (I use the word "hits" deliberately, as the repetition of thumps as each bird lands on the feeder, one after another in quick succession, can sound like a minor assault on my windows.) Today's five-minute bird blast came in the form of several titmice, a few chickadees, and one female cardinal. The suddenness of this avian visitation shook me out of work mode  for a few moments, forced a break in my routine as I watched to see who might show up. And then, as quickly as they appeared, they were all gone, moving on in the rain. 

Fall rain falling fast.

Birds here, a feeding flurry,

then gone. Still, the rain.

October 13: Ambulance

Driving down a country road in the rain past hayfields and an inert tractor, I saw flashing lights up ahead. Their red and blue were just a confusing blur through raindrops on my windshield till I drew closer. A police car and an ambulance were parked in front of an old farm house. No people in sight; the unmoving facade of the house a blank mask for whatever drama was playing out inside.

One minute you're driving along, listening to music, thinking about some task you need to finish up at work. The next... flashing lights! Emergency! A potentially life-changing event is happening to someone. I don't know who lives in that house, will probably never know what was going on. But you see an ambulance parked there accompanied by a police car--meaning, this is serious--and you can't help but think how quickly life can take a strange and urgent turn.

Lights a wet red pulse,
ambulance waits in the rain.
Alive, I drive past.

October 12: Lingering Vultures

Soaring above the tinted trees and the river this morning were a pair of vultures, dark wings spread wide. The two raptors tilted and turned in ever-widening circles as I watched. While most hawks have headed south at this point, vultures linger on. Last year I remember seeing them into November, and they returned as early as late February this year. Pretty soon, they won't even bother to leave. Is this a sign of global warming? Or is this just the continued northern dispersal of a southern species, one that first arrived in midcoast Maine just over 30 years ago? I have a strong memory of seeing the first ones appear in the skies over Bald Mountain when I was a teenager playing tennis at the Snow Bowl courts. I'd just seen them for the first time in Florida, so it was with some surprised that I recognized them here. Vultures nest on Bald to this day.

And, if vultures are here to stay, do we have enough unfrozen dead meat around to feed this species through the winter? Unlike their black vulture cousins, turkey vultures only eat what's already dead. I recall a news story of a woman in New York who elicited complaints from her neighbor because she left steaks out on her roof to attract the vultures. What she saw as a beautiful bird others saw as a rather gruesome nuisance.

I'm not sure I'd toss meat out in my yard to attract them, but I do love to watch them soar. And there's something particularly dramatic about seeing these large, black birds circling above the blushing autumn forest.

Before they head south,
vultures glory in fall air,
fiery leaves below.

October 11: Sumac

As I drove on an errand on this perfect, sunny autumn afternoon, stereo loud, I exclaimed to myself each time I passed a particularly stunning set of trees sporting fall colors. The garish colors matched the volume of my music and my elevated spirits. Roadside stands of sumacs in particular stood out, their long, arched pennants of leaves a deep, rich red.

If you look at the patchwork of colors that makes up a fall forest, you can often tell what species are in the mix. Poplar and birch leaves are yellow coins, maple leaves are yellow-orange-bright red hands, oak leaves are red-brown hands, beech leaves are yellow-brown flags, needles of the tamarack--the only deciduous conifer--form yellow-gold tufts. What at first glance looks like a random riot of color really reflects a certain order of things. But it's easy to overlook, amazed as we are by the breath-taking transformation of our woods, the trees' last hurrah before snow falls.

October's untamed:
red manes and tails of sumacs,
one black crow, roadside.

October 10: Hypnotizing a Chicken

My friend Janet called to see if I wanted to come over and help her hypnotize a chicken. Someone had mentioned it to her, so she'd looked it up online and thought it sounded relatively easy. How could I resist?

It was such a warm day the chickens were huddled under an overturned garden cart for shade. We lured them out by feeding them soybeans fresh from the vine and admired their plumage in the fall sunshine. Janet has several varieties of laying hen: Araucanas with exquisite black-tipped gold feathers, some other gold type with mottled plumage like an exotic partridge, black-and-white checkered Barred Rocks, and a beautiful Brahma rooster with iridescent hackles just getting his crowing voice. The "girls" are only 4-1/2 months old, so have just begun laying, their little red combs an indication that they've just reached maturity. A chicken flock is fascinating to observe: the rooster struts around keeping an eye on his harem, the hens seem to focus solely on any potential source of food, tilting their heads to look up at you as if to ask where their soybeans are. There's a definite pecking order, too, with some hens not getting a bean even if we dropped it right in front of them. 

Then there's the bevy of pretty Barred Rocks being grown for meat. These girls are a little older and bigger than the laying set. Janet decided to catch one of them for our hypnotism attempt, rather than disturb one of her layers and potentially miss out on a precious egg.  

Step One: Catch a hen.

 Step Two: Hold the hen firmly but gently on the ground, and with a stick repeatedly draw a line in the dirt with the chicken's bill as the starting point.

Step Three: Let go of the hen to see if it worked.

This is one relaxed hen.

Janet did all the work, while I documented the process in photographs. I don't think either of us anticipated that she'd actually succeed, but as you can see, we ended up with one very calm hen for about 30 seconds. She just sat there sprawled on the ground in a sort of trance, until she suddenly came to, jumped up, and ran off. Unfortunately I couldn't photograph the ensuing chaos, as I was too busy helping to catch her again. She soon rejoined her flock seemingly unaffected by the experiment, more concerned about snagging more soybeans. Perhaps her moment of focused meditation gave her some brief (h)enlightenment, but we'll never know.

Mindfully focused,
the hen falls into a trance.
Chicken mind, calm mind.

October 9: Northern Cross

On Friday night when we returned home late from dinner, I paused outside the house to admire the clear, star-filled sky. The streetlight that usually floods the front of our house with light is out, so now, when the weather allows, we've actually been able to fully appreciate the stars.

We picked out Jupiter to the southeast over Mount Battie, its steady light distinguishing this bright planet from our brightest stars. And as I looked up over our house, a set of stars called the Northern Cross poised upright over our roof. I pointed it out to my husband, told him our house was blessed. We had just been engaged in a long dinner conversation with friends about (mostly unusual or extreme) religious beliefs and practices. "Is that some sort of story?" he asked, thinking that I was noting a Christian folk belief. "That's my story," I told him. "I just decided that."

The Northern Cross is actually encompassed by a constellation long recognized (for a millenium or so) in the Western world as Cygnus, the Swan. Its brightest star Deneb is at the top of the cross, and is one of three stars that makes up another asterism known as the Summer Triangle, along with Altair (in Aquila, the Eagle) and Vega (in Lyra, the Lyre). Deneb is also considered to be the tail of the Swan, so this bird too is headed south, pointing the way for all those living birds migrating overhead in the cloudless dark.

October 8: Wild Geese

This morning while at the YMCA gym I happened to glance out the window just as seven geese flew past. (In my memory now I hear them honking, but I couldn't have, because I was listening to my iPod.) They were flying in a tight line northeastward, over the town transfer station's landfill which abuts the Y. It struck me that even a brief glimpse of a few geese heading out over the dump is still a stirring sight, but I'm not sure why that is. It's not like seeing a Canada goose around here is unusual: a family nested and hung out within sight of my office all summer, and local farm fields currently host flocks of dozens.

In part, I think we earth-bound humans often feel uplifted watching a large bird take flight, something we can only do in dreams or with mechanical assistance. Years ago I dreamed I was riding on the back of a large grey goose as we flew over mountains carpeted in fall colors, and I've never forgotten how that felt. Also, as autumn progresses, the sight of a bird we all identify with migration must swirl something restless within our own souls: flying geese = winter's onset. Even those of us who love winter must respond, must feel a small, unconscious tug to follow the birds and warmth, to head south. Humans originated as creatures of the heat and sun, after all.

So the honking of geese overhead in the dark in the fall is for most a sound of deep poignance. As a classical Japanese kigo or season word, migrating birds, or wataridori is a traditional indicator of fall. I know I'm far from alone in being moved to poetry by this phenomenon--one might even say it's a bit of a cliche--and yet that handful of geese flying over the dump, not even migrating yet, are what struck a chord in my heart this morning.

Seven wild geese flew
and my heart longed to follow
through the deep blue sky.