Another Morning in Paradise
2 September 2024: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), White River Junction, Vermont
5:57 a.m. 55 degrees, wind NW 3 mph, gusts to 9. Sky: immaculately cloudless and peach-tinted over New Hampshire's eastern frame. Outside the woods, buttery sunlight and long shadows; inside, the fickle spots of daybreak ... magically jaguar with a mercurial coat. Nineteen species of birds, including one warbler (yellow-rumped), least flycatcher, rose-breasted grosbeak, brown creeper, golden-crowned kinglet (around but silent to me for months), and red-eyed vireo (still here, ranting). Hummingbirds pollinate jewelweed. Phoebe cocks its tail. Blue jay gathers fallen acorns, screaming with its mouth full.
DOR: ring-necked snake (fifth of the summer), two years old and five inches long, a spaghetto of a snake; a freshly minted green froglet splayed mid-hop.
AOR: three tiny red efts, barely an inch-and-a-half long, as bright orange as a maple leaf, also freshly minted, take in the day in no apparent hurry to cross the road. Always the Summaritan, I help them along.
The Northern Hemisphere’s quid pro quo: although it’s Labor Day and summer’s death knell, it’s also the time of hawks, pesto, tomato soup, bread and butter pickles, the American League East pennant race, a sweatshirt in the morning. Last night, nighthawks flew against a muggy southwest wind, erratically and acrobatically, above both sides of the Connecticut River, seining fly ants that rose from the sandy bank as the birds worked toward Brazil, one watershed at a time. Summer passed with the nighthawks, swept away in their crooked flight. By dawn, the wind turned out of the northwest, and temperatures dropped, my fingers chilled—a cold front.
Down valley, close to the White River, an excitable pileated fractures the stillness, screaming like a banshee, adding another voice to the passage of time, a seasonal innuendo. Clocks on the Hill agree, and the curtain closes.
Outside the woods, buttery sunlight and long shadows; inside, the fickle spots of daybreak ... magically jaguar with a mercurial coat.
So fine..............
Again I realize every posting of yours makes my breathing and my heart slow their hurried paces, leaving me calm and at peace. Extraordinary!