Another Morning in Paradise

21 November 2024: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), White River Junction, Vermont

6:48 a.m. (three minutes before sunrise). Wind East 5 miles per hour, gusting 17. Dark and dank, prolonged twilight. Fog cuts the summit of the Hill and, across the Connecticut River, hides Moose and Smarts mountains, Mount Cube, and distant Moosilaukee. Across the White River, tendrils of mist slowly rise like campfire smoke or dragon's breath from the creases between corrugated hills, lingering in spots before merging into river fog—a mutiny of moisture. The ground is damp, and the leaves are not so brittle. A bar of whitish light cleaves the east. A blush in the southeast. Both are ephemeral, lost to the gloom like last night's dream. The valley and its hills are waiting for rain (long overdue). Ten species of birds (all the usual suspects): mourning dove, hairy woodpecker, common raven, common crow, blue jay, American robin, black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, northern cardinal, and dark-eyed junco.

Raven carrying food glides over the meadow, wings arced, feet dangling like landing gear. Raven curves east. Slows down. On the far side of the meadow, settles on a birch branch, bone-white and bouncy, screened in the mist. Eats breakfast in peace (and solitude).

Lonely robin calls from the crown of a sugar maple—sharp clucks. Nobody answers. 

Fourteen doves, wings in conversation, settle into a larch and remain settled (bumps on branches). A blue jay and a hairy woodpecker join the doves. With a touch of ADHD, neither bird stays put. Jay hops from branch to branch, upright, crest erect, calling; upwardly mobile, the woodpecker explores the trunk, picking and probing, gently drilling—its bright red crown an ember in the dullness.

Walking the Hill on a sunless morning becomes a revelation in bird nests: a robin nest in a maple, cemented by mud; a vireo nest, a tiny cup suspended from twigs by strips of birch bark and rootlets; and a gray squirrel nest high in an oak, an armful of leaves called a drey. Squirrel sleeps in, leaving the damp, late November morning to unfold independently.

Yesterday morning, I met a neighbor who recently arrived from Dallas. She told me a barred owl hunts her yard. Is it the same owl I see? Maybe. Another neighbor texted me a picture of an owl in an aspen, about a quarter of a mile beyond my driveway. And, farther up Kings Highway, I saw an owl on the electric line, swaying on the thin wire. Barred owls hunt the Hill, preying on rodents and unwary birds, navigating the neighborhood, property to property. Above my driveway. Behind my house, above the barren garden. Lord of the raspberries. Along the road. In the woods, specter-like, barely visible in the shadows. The owl (perhaps there's more than one) unites neighbors and gives us something to marvel at and discuss. Common ground in the soft browns and white … our shared iridescence.