Murmuring and buzzing signals of the season #phenology

Last night, despite the heat, we ate on the outdoor deck at the Watershed Cafe. There was an occasional breeze and the constant sound of flowing brooks to cool us. Bees and hornets, although not many, kept trying to taste our ketchup drips and the bright red ketchup bottle. They failed to find any satisfying sweetness but kept looking for some. This morning, about mid-morning, we drove past a couple of handfuls of duck hunters pulling out of the Sunrise River marshes and loading their canoes and duck boats back into their pickups. (The only time we ever unintentionally sank a boat was our canoe during a duck hunt in the South River marshes in Marshfield Massachusetts many, many years ago, but that's a posting for another day.)

bee on Autumn asters

Photo by J. Harrington

Along our driveway, bees continue to visit asters. We wonder if Monday's return to seasonal temperatures will reduce the number of visitors. Hornets are again swarming to a corner of our deck, the same one they head for every year, looking to find a sheltered, overwintering nook. When the cool weather sets in, we'll again see if we can disabuse them of the desirability of their chosen location for a Winter cabin.

male red-winged blackbird

Photo by J. Harrington

The copse of trees South of our house is currently full of red-winged blackbirds chittering and chattering. We suspect the combination of pre-migration season urges combined with the sudden appearance of unusual numbers of humans in local marshes triggered flocking and relocation movements to or trees. The Spring arrival of red-wings is seriously joyous. Autumn's departure is seldom noted, unless we see a murmuration.

                     [Murmurs from the earth of this land]

By Muriel Rukeyser

Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters,

       from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our

       dragon childhood, where we ran barefoot.

We stand as growing women and men. Murmurs come down

        where water has not run for sixty years.

Murmurs from the tulip tree and the catalpa, from the ax of

        the stars, from the house on fire, ringing of glass; from

        the abandoned iron-black mill.

Stars with voices crying like mountain lions over forgotten

        colors.

Blue directions and a horizon, milky around the cities where the

        murmurs are deep enough to penetrate deep rock.

Trapping the lightning-bird, trapping the red central roots.

You know the murmurs. They come from your own throat.

You are the bridges to the city and the blazing food-plant green;

The sun of plants speaks in your voice, and the infinite shells of

        accretions

A beach of dream before the smoking mirror.

You are close to that surf, and the leaves heated by noon, and

        the star-ax, the miner’s glitter walls. The crests of the sea

Are the same strength you wake with, the darkness is the eyes

        of children forming for a blaze of sight and soon, soon,

Everywhere your own silence, who drink from the crater, the

        nebula, one another, the changes of the soul.

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