6:20 a.m. 46 degrees, wind NNW 1 mph. Sky: crescent moon alone in the east; ground fog spreads from streams and marsh; pale-pink brush stroke across barren blue (for the moment), but moisture gathers as the walk progresses, builds into mounds, sheets, deflated footballs until the heavens, chafed and sore, threaten something beyond sunshine. Permanent streams: upper, jittery flow; lower, basswood shed more yellow leaves along with the memory of water. Wetlands: fog distilled to haze; red-shouldered hawk calls across the morning from a hidden perch; three jays in adjacent hemlock crowns, one bird per tree, upright and silent, peer into the marsh with the intensity of Hebrew scholars pondering the Kabbalah; eventually, discuss the mysteries in bell-tones and squawks. Pond: automated mist machine; steam with an eastward slant. Cinnamon ferns wilt. Crickets dial down.
DOR gray squirrel was gone, a free meal salvaged by a dark hunger
A loon and a raven, both unseen, call beneath the canopy of clouds. One guttural and expressive has a vocabulary to match the size of its brain; the other a wail so wild I look into the heart of the clouds; lost for a moment in the richness of morning. I see neither. But does that matter?
The morning in song: drum roll of a pileated; soft probing of a hairy woodpecker; a small group of magnolia warblers pass through the alders; one pauses for a moment, delivers a hoarse, nasal, unmusical enk; then gone, swallowed by alders. A fanfare of the nuthatches. Blue jays, an expansive repertoire of bell tones, squawks, hawk renditions, and jeers. Chickadees, an endless run of dees; goldfinches, both thin songs, and harsh calls. Rapid wingbeats of mourning doves, which flush from the yard every time I walk into view.
Porcupine waddles across the driveway, down the bank, and into the woods. Climbs aspen, a bunching climb, expanding and contracting like a squat slinky. Having been quilled before, dogs interested but cautious. Jordan and I used pliers to pull quills from Tenaya's nostrils and Shadowfax's mouth . . . some lessons stick—porcupines and skunks, slow and easy, meant to be seen (and appreciated). Bobcats and rattlesnakes, patient and camouflaged, blend into landscapes, not meant to be seen and rarely are. Mountain lions, the essence of secretive, conjured out of the landscape of the imagination . . . sightings, at least in Vermont, far too numerous to be credible. I heard the loon. I saw the porcupine; flesh and blood and prickles, now on a limb. Real and carefree. What more do I need to start the day?
Bats, a party of two, upside-down behind the barn door, blood rushing to their heads. Third day in a row.