6:21 a.m. 43 degrees, wind NNW 1 mph, the right direction for migration. Sky: eclipsed by fog, which fills the valleys, rises to the treetops, softens the outlines of hills and ridges. Permanent streams: upper, on life-support; lower, a sapsucker quietly works bordering basswood, which continues to rain yellow leaves on dry rocks. Wetlands: an overflow of mist, chowder thick, escapes on all sides, seeps into the woods. Ostrich ferns wilting; blackberries spent.
DOR: gray squirrel, en route home after a day at the feeder. Why do the skunks pass up a free meal?
AOR: chipping sparrow, first winter, clean breast, dark eyeline, trusting and casual.
An ensemble of nuthatches, white and red. Pileated drums across the marsh, loud on a chilly morning. Catbird, tucked in a shrub by the pond, complains, of what I'm not sure. Winter wren, sings, effusive and hushed, a clipped redo of April achievement . . . but still as solemn and beautiful as the sunrise.
I walk at dawn, on the rim of the morning, when veils of darkness begin to rollback. Birds traveling to places I've never been drop into green and yellow trees. Wander along branches that blush. My cellphone chirps like a field cricket, but when crickets chirp in the gray light of dawn, I don't think of my phone . . . I think of night fading, of summer giving way to autumn, sunlight warming the muzzle of the hill. In the cold air of September, I savor (and crave) the sun, warm against my puckered skin. When night dissolves and hawk fires his voice across the valley, the world ripens with possibility . . . again.