5:21 a.m. 38 degrees, wind SSW 1 mph. Sky: blue and blue, with filigrees of white. Streams slow down; no longer in a hurry, expose sandbars, which lengthen and widen by the day. Ash buds opening, slowly. Oak leaves bigger, greener. Black cherry flower buds ready to pop. Pin cherry already has. Mist rolls off the pond; none in the wetland.
The morning belongs to black-throated green warblers and ovenbirds, vigorously singing, jockeying for land ownership, however temporary, allocating resources within every dip and outcrop in the Hollow . . . the great land grab of 2020, repeated each year, endlessly until time stops. As to me, a roadside attraction holding a pair of leashed German shepherds, the birds care not a whit . . . sing and sing and sing some more.
Farther down the valley, a fluffed-out chestnut side warbler perches on a cherry twig, trimmed in cool light, a voice like Nina Simone, husky and sweet. And veeries sing morsels of song, picking up choral slack left by hermit thrushes, now handicapped by domestic chores. A robin wanders up a dry streambed, flipping matted leaves, finds one worm, and then another. Pileated laughs, loudly and infectiously. A blue jay cobbles together a song, part honk, part hawk. The drum of a grouse.
For a moment I can imagine a spinning Earth, a landscape leavened by sunshine, where a tide of chlorophyll rises impeccably and (almost) imperceptibly by the day, by the hour, by the moment out of Carolina and eventually reaching into Coyote Hollow . . . bringing gifts of a ripening season. And, me, stuck at home, attending the harvest.
11:46 a.m. 64 degrees, wind SSE 10 mph, exactly what warblers (and I) waited for two weeks ago. Refreshing, if quiet. Large bird sails over the trees, in and out of view; across a bay of reeds and cattails, wings tucked, long-tail pinched. I'm not sure what it is . . . I'm sure what it isn't, though. It's neither a red-shouldered nor a broad-winged; neither a red-tailed nor a raven. I'm left with two choices: crow and goshawk (wistful thinking).
A black-and-white warbler on a maple limb, striped like a cartoon jailbird, sings a song barely audible. An hors d’oeuvre for a goshawk. A red-eyed vireo, a between-meal snack, sings tediously and tenuously, not up to its usual standards. A more substantial morsel, a robin picks through the leaf-litter . . . more too its breast than rust-red feathers. I imagine the goshawk knows that.
And, the day continues . . .