Staging's starting #phenology

Admittedly it's debatable how "natural" this is, but it is seasonal. The Minnesota State Fair opens today. This morning's temperatures were Autumnal (low 60s). The Fair, if it doesn't signal the start of Autumn, definitely notes the end of Summer. his will be the last weekend before Labor Day.

I suspect local sandhill cranes are flocking up but haven't yet seen any this year. Reports on social media are that the monarch butterfly migration is starting (see sidebar).

sandhill crane flocks, August 30, 2013

Photo by J. Harrington

Sightings

• Ruby-throated hummingbirds at nectar feeder again today.


• Red squirrel inside screened patio. I noticed two large holes near top of a screen panel, adjacent outside steps from deck. (And here I've been fussing about chipmunks.)


• Several young of the year goldfinches trying to figure out how to navigate around and land on a crowded feeder.

The Sandhills

By Linda Hogan

The language of cranes

we once were told

is the wind. The wind

is their method,

their current, the translated story

of life they write across the sky.

Millions of years

they have blown here

on ancestral longing,

their wings of wide arrival,

necks long, legs stretched out

above strands of earth

where they arrive

with the shine of water,

stories, interminable

language of exchanges

descended from the sky

and then they stand,

earth made only of crane

from bank to bank of the river

as far as you can see

the ancient story made new.

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