6:57 a.m. (sunrise one minute earlier than yesterday; the time between sunrise and sunset twelve hours one minute). 18 degrees, wind ENE 1 mph. Sky: clear, full of promise, washed-out fruit bowl colors in the west (mostly cantaloupe, tangerine, and lemon; a hint of peach). Lording it over the Connecticut River valley, Mount Ascutney punctures the horizon showing its roots, tapered and blunt, the weathered plug of a volcano more than 100 million years old, spewed steam and lava over the shadows of early primates and Tyrannosaurs. Permanent streams: upper, water presses the undersurface of thin ice, a mobile Rorschach test, a continuous parade of rounded, gray shapes; lower, still buried but louder than yesterday. Wetlands: bent reeds in the waning snow, brooks like snakes curl through the marsh, entwined and deep and ice plated. One incautious dog falls through, scrambles out, rolls in the snow. All around, nuthatches, both species, and chickadees calling. Pileated laughing (must have watched the dog). Pond: iron-hard, won't be entertaining hooded mergansers anytime soon.
But they're coming: each spring, more than two billion birds cross the Gulf of Mexico, the trans-Gulf migrants—vireos, warblers, flycatchers, hummingbirds, nighthawks, etc.—birds that wintered from Mexico and Cuba to Argentina. Pushed by tailwinds, birds head north across the yawning Gulf. If the wind changes direction, blows out of the north, birds descend on the land . . . everywhere, anywhere. Exhausted. A fallout. The outer islands of the Gulf Coast famed for fallouts. We've had them in the Northeast. In May 2006, red phalaropes, en route to the desolate north, appeared in Vermont. One spent the morning on Lake Fairlee, swimming in circles, stirring up food.
According to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, fallouts are predicted over the Southeast between Saint Patrick's Day and March 19th. Simplified explanation: at sunset, calm, southerly winds blow up from the southern Gulf of Mexico; then, the following dawn, northerly winds blow over the Southeast and northern Gulf. Too tough to fly into headwinds. Larger, faster-flying birds (shorebirds and waterfowl) fallout first, often early in the morning, pitch onto beaches and salt marshes. Later in the day, lighter, slower-flying birds arrive—the result: an all-day bird fest, a planetary wonder.
A red-shouldered hawk, yesterday afternoon, circled and called, vocal spears hurled into The Hollow for the first time since 14th of October. Jay in aspen answered, a rank imitation. Today, as I fill the feeders, hawk gores the morning. The sun comes out of hiding, hot and yellow, urges sap to rise and bent reeds to collapse, and the world to unlock . . . again.
Once again I turn to Mary Oliver and her poem "Wild Geese"--especially the line "Meanwhile the world goes on." Even in a pandemic, nature's rhythms continue--and now, the wonder of migration.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
A beautiful and insightful article manifesting the glory of our planet and its wonderful life forms. Thank you.
Phil Evanstock
Avondale, Arizona