November 6: Election Day

Unless you've been living as a hermit in a cave for the past six months or more, you cannot have escaped the intrusive media frenzy that is election season. Now the day of reckoning is upon us. I voted early via absentee ballot, so did not participate this year in what I usually find to be a heartening community event, greeting friends and acquaintances in the fire station as we wait in line to carry out our civic duty. Even the town ballot issues seemed divisive this year. But in a way I wish I'd waited to vote in person, because instead of having at least that morning uplift of playing my tiny role in the democratic process, I've been anxious all day long hoping things turn out OK on the local, state, and national levels.

Only the birds coming to my feeder have provided adequate distraction. I'm trying a new bird seed and they seem to like it. A nuthatch returned several times, as did a female cardinal. And a squirrel made a few failed attempts to scale the building to reach the feeders. I got up and watched it for a while after it gave up and foraged in the grass for spilled seed instead. The sun shone on its fur, illuminating a pretty orange streak down its gray back. Its flippant tail looked invitingly soft. For a few moments, I simply admired that squirrel and didn't worry about a thing.

Election day anxiety.
Not to be a squirrel,
but to have such simple desires--

November 5: First snow

The first few flakes of snow were falling this morning, barely visible, but a sign that we're on the cusp of the cold season. Meanwhile, a birder friend made a morning trip to Sebasticook Lake to see if he could relocate a white pelican found there yesterday. (American White Pelican is a very rare species in Maine--this one undoubtedly ended up here thanks to Sandy.) He was successful, finding not only a new "state bird"--the first of this species he had seen in Maine--but also the first pelican he'd observed while snow was falling.

Snow falling on pelican.
Climate change:
things fall apart.

November 4: Urban birding

Joined two friends for a day of birding in Portland. They know the area well and were familiar with all the pockets of vacant lots, community gardens, and patches of woods along city trails like the Eastern Promenade. Also, Portland being on a peninsula meant we had opportunities for scanning the water. It was a different kind of birding than I usually do, particularly one stretch along West Commercial St., a wasteland which, in warmer weather, is clearly a refuge for many homeless people. Piles of clothing, tarps, and, more heartbreakingly, toys lay scattered in various clearings below a bluff on which sit several large, well-kept houses. It was a surreal experience to witness this evidence of social drama while walking the trails in search of birds, and I found it somewhat challenging at times to focus on birds.

We did come across some interesting birds in this area, including a flock of Hermit Thrushes lingering later into the season than expected. The highlight, however, was a Barred Owl that flew through the woods to land right in front of us. It perched there as we watched it, occasionally giving us a glance, but otherwise, we might not even have been there.

Sodden toys and clothing
scattered in the woods
under owl's dark eyes.

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November 3: Lapwing

Spent a good part of today with good birding buddies "chasing" a rarity in southern Maine. A lapwing was reported at a sod farm in Berwick. This funky-looking bird is a common resident of Europe. One has ended up in Maine only a few times before, ever. None of us think of ourselves as chasers; we prefer to find whatever we happen to find when we're out and about. But this was too cool a bird to pass up.
 
When we arrived, the bird had flown. We spent several hours wandering around the green sod fields under a wide blue November sky mottled with clouds. A large flock of Horned Larks shifted closer, their tinkling songs audible over the wind and the chatter of birders. Other birder friends appeared, turning the event into an even more social outing. By the time we left, we figured out that the number of birders looking for the lapwing equaled the number of species seen. The lapwing never returned. But it was all good.
 
We speak of "need."
What we received:
blue sky, larks, laughter.

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November 2: Day of the Dead

Thinking of loved ones who have passed on while watching the morning sun appear over my neighbors' roof. A red cardinal visits my feeder as I sit here lost in reverie, refocusing my attention to the present.
 
Wan sun rising over
rotting leaves, yellowed hostas.
Cardinal arrives.
 

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November 1: Mountainside

Driving home with the softly arching curve of Mount Battie silhouetted against the deep blue sky of early evening...
 
Topography--
I want to caress
Earth's soft forms.

Posted with Blogsy

October 31: Halloween lights

The guy at the end of our street elaborately decorates his house for every holiday. It's a local tradition to drive by, especially at Christmas when he goes all out. Halloween night was no exception, of course. When I drove past this evening, the cloud-wreathed just-past-full moon (upper right in the photo below) shone above his lurid pumpkins and ghosts. It made for an interesting contrast, so I pulled over to properly take it all in.

Moon a calm eye
looking down on our antics,
undaunted by fluorescence.

October 30: Flood

Since childhood I've had recurring nightmares about water--rogue waves about to carry me under, storms creating waves so high they creep up over the bank and across the lawn to carry away my grandparents' house, roads or paths flooded and impassable so I'm stranded with water all around me... You'd think that since I'm a water sign, a Pisces, I'd have a better subconscious relationship with water. But no.

So when I was looking at photos this morning of the flooding and destruction caused by Sandy in New Jersey and New York--cars completely submerged on city streets, houses surrounded by waves, impossibly high waves crashing over sea walls onto shorefront houses, commuter tunnels filled to the top with water--it was like seeing my worst dreams come to life. The images produced such a visceral reaction in me, I had to stop looking. My heart goes out to those people for whom such images are not just bad dreams but reality. And as I listen to the rain fall--nothing torrential, no high winds--I am tremendously grateful to have had it so easy here on the Maine coast, and that all those I love are safe.

It all washes away
so easily.

 

October 29: Entrainment

Hurricane Sandy, Extra-tropical Storm Sandy, Big Huge Storm Sandy, or whatever you want to call it,  is headed our way after already wreaking havoc on the mid-Atlantic states on up. When a big storm system moves through during a migration season, some birders get excited, anticipating unusual southern--even tropical--species blown off course. Pelicans and boobies end up off the coast of Maine; seabirds end up far inland. If you and yours are safe and sound post-storm, that can be one of the most interesting times to be out birding. If this kind of storm watching appeals to you, eBird offers more specific information.

In reading on eBird about how this storm may affect various types of birds, I've learned a few things. Strong storm winds may displace birds--blowing around or concentrating large flocks, knocking pelagic birds inland, for example. Or birds may get caught up in the calm eye of the storm, especially one as large as Sandy, and get carried thousands of miles north along with the weather. That's how we end up with tropicbirds in Massachusetts. That's entrainment.

This song describes Van Morrison's definition of "entrainment." It seems to differ slightly from the ornithological definition. But the concept, however one thinks of it, has tremendous poetic potential.

Calm amid passion's swirl
yet still carried away,
dropped on a strange shore.

October 28: Late start

Typing today's post while still in bed under my quilt and comforter, cat at my side...

Some mornings as I lie here with the shade drawn--so I can't see if the sun's shining--I hear the river just outside and think the roar of all that water must be rain falling. And that thought makes me want to stay in the cocoon comfort of my warm bed and sleep the day away...

River sounds like rain.
I'm tempted to stay in bed
all morning.

October 27: Hunting season

Today was opening day for deer hunting season for Maine residents. As a friend and I drove early this beautiful morning to a class in Lewiston, we saw several pick-up trucks parked alongside misty fields through which one might expect to see deer wander at dawn. We also passed one hunter in camo and blaze orange, carrying a shot gun. An old Maine tradition continues.

Opening day:
blue sky, sun on leaves,
hunters wishing for snow.