6:53 a.m. 50 degrees, wind NWN 0 mph. Sky: rumpled and gray, edge to edge, steady drizzle; dendritic fog, an aerial watershed, marks every stream, rivulet, pond, marsh, and the two branches of the Ompompanoosuc River; the ubiquitous drip of leaves—beech, oak, and aspen, mostly—amplifies the rhythm of the rain. Permanent and intermittent streams: status quo, volume, and volume; quietly determined. Wetlands: rain-rich brown, a dimly lit wafer of reeds. Pond: dark and rain dinted; I startle four hooded mergansers on the far end. Ducks scull in tight circles, then race a short distance across the surface and take off, over the road and into the marsh, again; long-tailed, hammer-headed, wings whirring.
AOR: adult female green frog (Lithobates clamitans), small tympanum, eye-size; white throat not yellow; a frog the size of an oak leaf, upright in the road; as cold and slimy as raw chicken. Stays put in my hand, puffed-up. I put her in the woods aimed toward the marsh, which is where I hope she was headed. Dogs oblivious; another meaningless activity.
Chickadees busy in the hardwoods. Aren't they always? Brown creeper whispers single notes, high and thin, a faltering delicacy. Pileated screams, loud and ringing . . . such a contrast to the creeper, barely audible above the rain. Along the edge of the woods, two white-throated sparrows in the ruin of an apple tree. Robins, everywhere in and around the alders, a flock on the move.
When I returned home, industrious blue jays in the front yard bury acorns. A by-product of food storage, the lawn becomes a forest. Bobcats recline in the shadows. Birds nest on new limbs. Treefrogs call in the rain, and cicadas electrify the doldrums. It's what Vermont longs to be . . . a woodland at heart.