5:52 a.m. 54 degrees, wind NNE 3 mph. Sky: a mass of blue-gray, volatile and perforated, across the middle, silver highlights; tinted peach in the south; the north as seemingly barren as the open ocean. Permanent streams: upper, subtle flow exposed by the shimmer of reflected daylight; lower, dry rocks on the damp earth. Wetlands: a fawn bounding back and forth broadcasts joy across the marsh, white flag up; big-eyed doe grazes and watches, a vigilant island of brown in a sea of sun-bleached green; tufts of goldenrod on the drier shoulders of the marsh. Pond: trace of mist close to the surface. Ostrich ferns browning along the margins of the fronds; the splash of green pine cones cut by industrious red squirrels.
AOR: a hermit thrush gleaning beetles; a crow striding south; a junco gathering grit.
Five hummingbirds (one male), no rest for the weary, chase each other around the feeder, ritualistic sword fights, pause for a nanosecond in the cherry, and then back into the fray. Phoebe on the fence post, calling and tail-flicking. Jays carry the morning; hurl their voices at each other. Two pewees whistle away the season. Three red-breasted nuthatches busy themselves on the trunk of an oak, a headfirst descent, a trio as blue-gray and rose as the morning sky, and then fly beyond my sightline, away.
A mixed flock of warblers—a few Tennessee and at least one nattily feathered black and white—pass through the crowns of three towering big-toothed aspens, feasting and flitting; rarified sparks of life that draw me close to their hub in the nervous leaves. I can't turn away. Like trying to shake a pebble out from between my toes, I'm compelled to stand beneath the aspens and identify more warblers, to tease birds out of the flock, an effort that proves futile. Bewitched, nevertheless, I'm pulled along their journey, from tree to tree; an aerial communion that lasts mere minutes, leaves me wanting more . . . a moment that brings me closer to the heart of the valley, closer to the pitch of the season.
Hemispheric migrants, here and gone. The sweetness of the morning.