6:46 a.m. (sunrise two minutes earlier than yesterday). 25 degrees, wind NNE 0 mph, meltwater gullies along the roadside. Sky: in the south, a few spare—see-through—clouds in otherwise clear blue, hints of lemon in the west. Condensation of breath, which rises like chimney smoke. Permanent streams: fed by the hill's slope and the road's cut, a seasonal infusion; upper, clear and refreshing to watch, wondrous to hear; lower, an awakening, oval openings merge become lines, circles become ovals, stretched and misshapen. Wetlands: from the western hemlocks, pileated drumming and calling across a bowl of snowless sedges and rushes, crippled by the weight of winter. Chickadee foraging along alders branches, too busy feeding to call. Pond: a corruption of ice, not to be trusted.
Crows and chickadees up before the sun. Robin in aspen, top-most branch, calling and singing, surrounded by swollen buds, breast on fire in the long, warm glow of the sunrise. Red-shouldered hawk screams, raven croaks. The front yard becomes an avian melting pot: two downy woodpeckers; two hairy woodpeckers; two titmice; a grackle, purple sheen in the morning light; a redwing; three crows; a red-breasted nuthatch; two white-breasted nuthatches; too many chickadees to count; eleven juncos; five jays, noisy, nosy, and misbehaved. Two chipmunks and a lone gray squirrel, tail swishing, all grow fat on a steady rain of seeds spilling from the feeders.
Last night, at the gloaming, two woodcocks performed nuptials above the alders. I listened as the light drained from the western sky, from lavender to gray to star-studded. Back and forth over the maples, descending into the punky, saturated marsh, where worms loiter at the surface . . . within easy reach of knitting-needle bills. Aldo Leopold died in 1948, helping a Wisconsin neighbor fight a brush fire. A year later, his sparkling essays were curated and published as A Sand County Almanac, which has sold more than two million copies and remains the only book I've read more than three times. Leopold called woodcock courtship flight a sky dance and then concluded that the flight was a refutation of the theory that the utility of a game bird is to serve as a target, or to pose on a slice of toast. I never saw the woodcock. I just listened, and my night was richer for it.
Ah, Aldo Leopold--another of Earth's great prophets. This youtube video shows "The Shack" and how he and his wife and five children transformed the land:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcxCVHidUc
And the Aldo Leopold Foundation will allow us to stream GREEN FIRE for free, the film about Leopold's life by just entering name and email:
https://www.aldoleopold.org/teach-learn/digital-resources/#Green-Fire
Thanks so much for reminding me that it's time for a re-read of A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC. As we head toward Earth Day 2021, the theme is "Restore Our Earth". In 2020, a new edition of SAND COUNTY was released to honor the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and I hope to find that edition. And just now I heard from the UN Environment Programme that they will be declaring the next decade one for "Ecological Restoration." Good to know some people are aware that this pandemic has affected much more than just human beings.
This is one of my favorite SAND COUNTY quotations:
“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a good shovel.” "Pines Above the Snow", A Sand County Almanac. He'd tell me to stop talking and start digging!
Your posts are nothing if not predictive for same latitude across the river: Our very first woodcock calls in Lane River wetlands in Sutton NH last evening... a pair of red shouldered hawks shrieking "keer-keer" yesterday morning and chasing during aerial display. Maple sap run has been a torrent and overnight warm temps will shut it down by tomorrow night - but then rain on Thursday evening could move some wood frogs and spotted salamanders by Friday? Its all at once - a torrent. Spring fever a kind of Nature-induced attention deficit - or attention overload?