Another Morning in Paradise
31 August 2024: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), White River Junction, Vermont
5:57 a.m.: 55 degrees, wind S 4 mph (almost undetectable on the north side of the Hill—the White River side; gusty on the south side—the Ottauquechee River side). Before sunrise, the sky is rumped and gray. Then, as the sun climbs Moose Mountain, a band of light stretches north and south, fractures (like a sunburst), sending lines of neon rose above the Hill. Eventually, the heavens take on a subdued gray-purple hue, with a tincture of pinkish, before regressing to rumbled gray. I continue southeast uphill beneath recurring dawn. The drone of tree crickets. The chatter of field crickets. The chips, peeps, and whines of cardinals, catbirds, and a yellowthroat. A far-off crow. No sign of a raven. Twelve species of birds, including two warblers (common yellowthroat and female black-throated green, dull as dishwater), both nuthatches and a pair of dueling ruby-throated hummingbirds.
Almost everything's yellow along the roadside: goldenrod, Jerusalem artichoke, sunflowers, seedheads of ripe grass, pale asters and vivid asters, purple petals ringing yellow discs ... I could almost forget tomorrow, September 1.
Back home, a mob of a hundred grackles commandeer the deck, the sunflower feeders, and the ground below. Even gray squirrels back off. Grackles battering grackles, jostling for seeds. Juveniles have dark eyes, adults yellow. Males have a purple iridescence; females are less so—a plague of grackles, hooligans of late August getting in each others' way. I wave my arms. Grackles explode upward, crowding the backyard maples, branches sagging under their weight. Birds are in constant motion and impossible to count. Impossible to look away. Finished eating, grackles leave behind a mass of hose-worthy guano.
By contrast, a demure flock of chickadees, a countable crowd of six, pick caterpillars off worn lilac leaves. No pushing or shoving. Resource-sharing. A refreshingly democratic approach to breakfast ... I cast my lot with chickadees.
Thank you for reminding me to look.