Sightings #phenology

Moments ago, just as I sat down to start this post, a red fox ran put of the woods to the North (on my right), across what passes for our yard, and out into the fields and conifer patch to the South. That was awesome and would have made my day, except that my day had already been made two or three times over.

This morning I watched a hawk, larger than a kestrel, smaller than a red tail, fly across the yard and into the woods to the North. I'm not sure what it was but am guessing it may have been a broad-winged hawk because I noticed a conspicuously banded tail. Later, as I returned from some mid-day errands, I saw a Ruby-throated hummingbird investigating the new hummingbird-butterfly plant collection in the front garden. Unfortunately, my camera was elsewhere on each on these occasions. Even if it had been in my hands, each sighting was so brief that I doubt I could have captured it. It would seem even the local critters are feeling frisky and enjoying some of Summer's best weather.

bee on Bee Balm (bergamot)

Photo by J. Harrington

Tasting the Wild Grapes

The red beast
who lives in the side of these hills
won’t come out for anything you have:
money or music. Still, there are moments
heavy with light and good luck. Walk
quietly under these tangled vines
and pay attention, and one morning
something will explode underfoot
like a branch of fire; one afternoon
something will flow down the hill
in plain view, a muscled sleeve the color
of all October! And forgetting
everything you will leap to name it
as though for the first time, your lit blood
rushing not to a word but a sound
small-boned, thin-faced, in a hurry,
lively as the dark thorns of the wild grapes
on the unsuspecting tongue!
The fox! The fox!

—Mary Oliver, 1978

From American Primitive

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