December 28: A Few Birds

This morning the sun thought about shining, and the sky wore sheer blue for a few hours, despite the forecast of 100% chance of snow or rain. The only flurry I experienced was of titmice. After days of having few to no birds visit my office feeder, several titmice came in from all directions for about half an hour. As usual, each bird would land, calling its few raspy notes as if to say, "Here I am!", look in at me, take a seed, then leave.

While this little burst of activity was taking place, four crows were grazing nearby on the sodden, half-frosted, lumpy lawn. One crow played for a while with a frozen apple, tossing it around with its bill without much hope of rendering it edible. The others looked on, and then they all turned their bright black eyes on me at the window. I like to watch them strut and stroll in their family group, my neighbor crows, these birds who will eat almost anything (or at least try). Out of politeness, I backed away from the window so they could continue their explorations without fear. The titmice flew back and forth from feeder to bush and tree a little longer. Then they all flew off. No chickadees today, or goldfinches. An uninspiring day overall, redeemed by these few visitors.

Family of four crows,
what can this wet lawn offer?
One frozen apple.

December 27: Winter Rain

A lazy day here at our home, regrouping after the holidays: doing laundry, writing thank you notes, polishing off some of the many cookies we've accumulated over the past week... And now that the Patriots have decisively clinched the AFC East title, I may even sit back and crack open one of the books on the huge stack that has sprouted on my bedside table. It's a perfect day for this kind of thing, because the weather outside is truly frightful. Unfortunately, it's not snow coming down, but lots and lots of rain, the deluge enhanced by gusting wind. The river's high, water pools in our neighbor's yard, and the remaining snow washes away bit by bit. This dreary weather could easily lead to post-holiday gloom. Fortunately, those cookies and some chocolate are close at hand, and I'm about to open Bernd Heinrich's Summer World in hopes of being transported ahead six months to a new season...

Rain sweeps away snow,
reveals winter's detritus
with months left to go.

December 26: Tracks

Although we've seen a dusting of snow the past couple of days--we got our white Christmas--the white stuff that encrusts our lawn is far from pristine. Our tiny yard is littered with twigs, branches, bark, and other detritus. Some bare patches reveal a layer of crisp brown oak and maples leaves, an earthy cake under that stale frosting. We've tromped a path from the back step to the shed. And all around, the regular indentations of animals tracks meander through the snow.

It doesn't take a skilled tracker to figure out what's traveled through our yard. In the front, some big canine paw prints reveal where a walked dog strayed from the sidewalk. A series of smaller holes, following a purposeful path along the fence line into the backyard, record the visit of the neighbor's cat. I've observed him treading that very route in all seasons, sometimes several times a day. He follows the edge of the backyard to the shed, then ducks beneath the building, where I think he hangs out for awhile before continuing on his way through the south end of the neighborhood. Unaware of property deeds and surveys, he knows very well the perimeters of his territory, which he patrols vigilantly. After every storm I note this same pattern of tracks in the fresh snow.

In the backyard, besides the feline border patrol, squirrels leave the light marks of their daily explorations. Around the dead tree stump where I sometimes leave old vegetables, some deeper imprints reflect high activity when the snow was soft. Like rabbits, squirrels hop. Their paired prints--the bigger back feet landing ahead of their smaller front feet--engrave the snow all over the backyard. Sometimes I'll also see where they dug into snow seeking some long-remembered acorn. And if I went back there and looked carefully along the edge of the trees, I might even see the tracks of yesterday's duck visitors, though ducks tread lightly.

Snow's an open book
telling a simple story:
habits, hunger, quest.

December 25: Christmas Ducks

A few times on Christmas, Mother Nature has given us the gift of an unusual wildlife sighting. One year, my dad and I saw a flock of Bohemian waxwings--one of my favorite birds--settle into a tree right outside my parents' house. Another year, we looked out to see an otter on the river ice, apparently eating a fish, eyed by a bald eagle in a nearby tree. This year, as I sat down to my computer after enjoying a lovely Christmas brunch with friends, I noticed three black ducks waddling up the snowy bank from the river, probably scoping out our yard for acorns. That in itself was kind of cool. Although we see ducks almost daily down in the river, they've never before visited our back yard. But then we noticed that a pair of wood ducks was also moving up the bank into our yard. The male wood duck has such exotic coloring and patterns that seeing one at any time seems like a gift. And here he was, mate in tow, hustling through our yard on Christmas Day. Wish they'd hung out long enough for a photo.

(Thanks to Wikimedia, here's a photo I would like to have taken of a male wood duck)

Now a squirrel's digging in a patch of dead leaves, but somehow that isn't as festive and exciting. Still, Merry Christmas, squirrel! I hope you and the ducks find a holiday treat under the snow and leaves back there.

Wood duck in my yard--
gaudy as a Christmas gift,
a gift worth sharing.

December 24: Christmas Eve

When I was a child, my grandmother told me that at midnight on Christmas Eve the animals talk. My grandmother's parents were both from Aberdeen, Scotland, but she was born in Massachusetts. So I have no idea if this came directly from her Scottish heritage--but I do know now that this is a fairly widespread folk belief in America and Western Europe. Trying to track the source is complicated. Christians legend has it that animals talk then because when Christ was born the animals in the manger spoke words of adoration and sang hymns to him. (Even bees, apparently!) Other sources assert that this is a pre-Christian belief along the lines of the myriad Christmas Eve fortune-telling superstitions that have arisen in many cultures.

Be that as it may, Christmas Eve is a magical time for a child, and I always believed what my grandmother told me. She and my grandfather raised sheep and chickens, and I wondered what it would be like to visit the sheep shed at midnight. Knowing them, they would probably all start grumbling about how they wished we fed them more, or how they wished they hadn't been bred this year because next spring it would mean twin lambs butting their teats and hopping all over their backs. And the chickens nestled safely in their little hay-lined cubbies, what would they have to say? Would they suddenly start gossiping like the bunch of cackling biddies they were?

Rosanne Griffeth, a goat farmer living near Great Smoky Mountains National Park, related this Christmas Eve tale about her goat Nod in a 2005 blog:
"This midnight as the clock heralded in the wee hours of Christmas Day, I went out onto the porch to check on Nod. I think the part of me who was still eight years old was half-hoping to hear her say something.


'Blah. Blah-blah.' She said, looking up at me with her topaz colored goat eyes and snorting.


I understood perfectly.


'Screw you! Give me some damn corn, you bitch!'


I scratched her under the chin and told her she was a good girl. Because it's important to tell homely creatures they are beautiful, and naughty creatures that they are good."

Fairy tales in which humans hear animals talking on Christmas Eve don't usually bode well for the hearer, who often learns of his or her imminent demise. Perhaps this solsticial magic isn't meant for our ears, but is supposed to remain in the realm of the unexplained and supernatural--something to spark the delight inherent in the holiday season, but not to be pondered too deeply. Even so, when I wake up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, I inevitably turn to the cat sharing my pillow and ask her if she feels like saying anything. And true to her nature, she twitches her tail in annoyance at my disturbing her sleep and remains silent. Probably just as well. She has quite the temper.

Christmas Eve magic--
will animals speak tonight?
We crave connection.

December 23: Flicker Feather

I confess that when I'm walking around in the great outdoors, if I find a cool feather I will sometimes pocket it. Technically this is illegal. According to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act: "Unless and except as permitted by regulations, …it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means, or in any manner…to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, …possess, offer for sale, sell, …purchase, import…any migratory bird, any part, nest, or eggs of any such bird…"


That said, however, I've got a small feather from a northern flicker sitting in a little vase on my desk. It's a miniature work of art--about five inches long, dark brown vanes with white edging on the wider side, and a bright yellow shaft with a white quill. Sharpened, it might make a good pen for a gnome. The underside has a yellow sheen. Here in the east, our flickers are of the yellow-shafted subspecies. When a flicker flaps past, that yellow underside is obvious. Out west, you see the red-shafted subspecies. Same basic bird, but the underwing shines pinkish-red when it dips past. They both have the characteristic white rump spots--usually the diagnostic marking that gets noticed as the bird dives into tree cover. 


Maybe because grey tones seem dominant right now, today I've been especially noticing my feather. The hints of spots on its edges are like parts of a Rorschach ink blot test. What do they make me think of? The sharp piercing cry of the flicker as it calls from the trees outside my window in spring... the squadrons of migrating flickers I see on Monhegan each fall... the subtle beauty of this woodpecker as it pecks for ants on my mother's lawn... And the yellow shaft is a really deep gold, almost like an egg yolk or a summer sun. A little bit of brightness next to my books and file folders.


In the spring I'll probably release it to the wind, atone for my law-breaking. But for now, my eyes need it here. 


Small flicker feather
picked up in last summer's woods,
shaft a slice of sun.

December 22: Squirrel's Nest

4:15. It's that time of day when everything has faded to black and white: black line of driveway, white snow, black branches of trees against white sky. Out my window a row of trees is starkly silhouetted and rocking gently in a frigid breeze. The scene could be pleasing in a nostalgic, twilit kind of way, except for the chunky power pole sitting amid the graceful lines of the lacing branches.

Also standing out amid the lines of trunks, branches, and power lines: a clump of leaves halfway up the tallest tree that must be a squirrel's nest, also called a drey. Odd words like that stick in my head. I've tried looking it up to find out where it came from, but other than learning that you could also name your baby boy Drey, it appears to be of unknown origin.

Photo by Brian Willson (Interestingly, taken the same day I wrote this entry. Guess I wasn't the only one pondering squirrel nests today.)

When I was very young, my mother would read me a picture book called "Miss Suzy." (I just looked it up on Amazon and it's still in print! It's now in my shopping cart.) The plot line was fairly simple. Miss Suzy was a grey squirrel who lived in a neat house in a tree, until some mean red squirrels chased her out and messed up her house. Some toy soldiers fought them off and somehow helped Miss Suzy find a new home. I mostly remember being enchanted by her little acorn cups and twig broom. Even now when I see a squirrel's nest I can't help but wonder what's inside. And how does more than one squirrel fit in there, anyway?

Clump of leaves and twigs,
somehow sheltering squirrels.
What makes a home "home"?

December 21: Winter Solstice

This morning I awoke with a sense of deep excitement: today is the Winter Solstice. In the most literal sense, things will be getting brighter now. 

Solstice means literally "sun standing," an apt metaphor for the shortest day when the sun follows its lowest track above the horizon--a time when the wheel of the seasons seems to pause before rolling on into spring. Winter solstice in this hemisphere is the moment when the earth's axis tilts the farthest away from the sun. It's officially the first day of winter, though we've already been plunged into what most of us would call winter for the past couple of weeks. It seems ironic that the season of ice and cold begins on the day when the sun is, in a sense, reborn. From here on out, until the Summer Solstice, the days will grow longer. Our light will gradually return, even as we plunge more deeply into the snow drifts of the next few months. 

The Solstice has been tracked since Neolithic days--ancient monuments such as Stonehenge are aligned with this significant day. Holidays and rituals have evolved all over the world to celebrate the rebirth of the sun god and/or the light. (Check out Wikipedia for what is literally an A to Z listing of various events connected to the Winter Solstice through time and across cultures. In light of the day--pun intended--evergreen trees decorated with candles really are the perfect Solstice symbol.) As I drove into my driveway tonight, candles in my windows and the lights of my Christmas tree shining through the blind welcomed me, and I felt a true surge of joy. Slowly we progress from darkness to light, reborn ourselves in spirit. Something from earliest human existence, when we must have feared the sun was leaving us for good, stirs within us even now. 

Interestingly, one of my co-workers who is also a doula, a childbirth assistant, helped at a birth today: a new child brought into the world, echoing the reborn sun rising tomorrow to linger with us just a few minutes longer.

Winter Solstice night--

our darkest evening deepens.

New sun awaits birth.

December 20: Snow Snakes

This morning I drove to a friend's house as the snow started to fall amid gusty winds. The swirls of snow atop dry pavement were like the mesmerizing S patterns snakes make sliding through sand. Driving home several hours later, after an inch or so of snow had made the roads rather slick, I thought of those "snow snakes" I had seen earlier. Snakes are beautiful creatures, but some can be deadly. And so it is with snow. Watching the flakes fall this morning gave me happy thoughts of a white Christmas; creeping home this afternoon, I was anxiously reminded of the couple of times I slid off the road last winter.

Snow slithers in wind
side-winding into slick drifts--
dangerous beauty.

December 19: Christmas Bird Count

The annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is one of those holiday season traditions that I always look forward to. The basic premise is this: a fixed Count Circle with a 15-mile radius has been divided into territories, or sections; we spend the entire designated day counting every bird we see in our section. Not just how many species we see, but every individual bird we see. All day. It's a long one, especially when temperatures are low.

The Christmas Bird Count, which has been going on for over 100 years, originated as an alternative to the Christmas "Side Hunts" in which men would compete to see who could shoot the most birds. Done in the same place at the same time over a number of years, the CBC reveals trends in bird populations. You can read more about it on the Audubon website. My husband and I have personally been involved with the local Thomaston-Rockland Count for over 15 years, and have been leading "our" section for about half that time. This morning we were joined by several birder friends who were kind enough to brave the cold to help us count. We began the day with a fly-by pair of ravens. Louisa Gerstenberger's sharp eyes found an eagle perched in a tree; later we enjoyed watching it fly over the breakwater. This was the only ocean in our section, so we spent the longest time here, trying to rack up ducks, geese, grebes, and loons. The breakwater itself was covered with a thin coating of salty ice, and scattered with gull-pecked sea urchin bodies. Usually we see purple sandpipers on the seaward side of this jetty, but not today, despite walking its length, with care, two different times.

After lunch, my husband and I were on our own in tackling the most challenging part of our section, a strange no-man's-land in Rockland's hinterlands, a marshy valley bounded by several old limestone quarries that, despite being across the street from the city dump, has also become a local dumping grounds. This year we came upon the remains of a moose head. Some years it's discarded appliances or a bag of deer guts, and always lots of beer bottles. This year, a moose head. We were also fortunate enough to come upon a flock of cedar waxwings, one of my favorite birds, as well as a group of 6 cardinals, several red-tailed hawks flying over the fields, and some attractive sparrows.

By dark, we had racked up 34 species, 753 individuals. In a "good" year we get at least 40 species, but we aren't complaining. Our list includes 7 wild turkeys, 5 downy woodpeckers, 127 Canada geese, 57 crows, 101 herring gulls, 4 horned grebes, and 23 buffleheads. And we spent the whole of a sunny winter day outside, looking for birds with good friends in this beautiful area we call home. That's the kind of holiday tradition I like to keep.

We saw 36 of these guys, including this one. Photo by Brian Willson.

Raven: two; Loon: four--

ritual of the Bird Count.

But who can count joy?

December 18: Sky

I suffer from insomnia, and my patient husband helps me fall asleep every night by reading to me. Over the years, he has read me J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (and The Hobbit), twice, all the works of Jane Austen (he's read Pride and Prejudice, my favorite, three times), Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie series, twice, all the Sherlock Holmes stories, and C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. He's currently reading me Tolstoy's War and Peace...


...which explains why today, when gazing out my window at the incredible, clear blue sky in a sort of distracted rapture, a particularly memorable passage from War and Peace came to mind. Prince Andrei, one of the book's heroes, is wounded while fighting in the Battle of Austerlitz. Formerly a rather stuck-up, proud man, the following experience of enlightenment eventually changes him for the better. 
"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky--the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrei. "Not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!..." (Book 3, Chapter XVI). 


Amid war, he finds peace. A perfect sky such as today's uplifts my spirits, puts things in perspective. Whatever is going on below--the ant-like toils of humans upon the planet--the implacable blue face of the shining sky overarches it all. Even when clouds obscure this brilliance, we know from airplane travel that if you rise high enough above them, the sun shines and the sky is wide-open, infinite, blending into the cosmos. 


Walk outside. Look up.
Sky gods don their blue silk capes,
dazzle us mortals.