Weather for the birds?

A red-bellied woodpecker is at the feeder. We most often see them during the colder weather months. More woodpeckers will arrive once the suet has been put in the holders. That's still to come and, candidly, we haven't yet enjoyed enough good Autumn weather to be ready to experience the arrival of cold and ice and snow-that-stays. Perhaps this week upcoming will provide enough sunshine to temper our autumnal moodiness. Today's partly sunny, mostly cloudy skies have been an improvement over the complete overcast, rain and drizzle that's filled most of the past two months around here, and our perspective on life has soared to the skies accordingly.

red-bellied woodpecker feeding on sunflower seeds

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday while helping the Daughter Person and the Son-In-Law move to their new house, we drove along a harvested bean field that had half a dozen or so swans(?) and multitudes of Canada geese gleaning what the combines left. We've never before seen "swans" feeding in a field although the good folks at Cornell say they do. Maybe, if the "swans" were  decoys, we still haven't seen them as field feeders. They were far enough off, and we were traveling fast enough that we can't, with certainty, say they were live. Later in the day, on a subsequent trip, we saw a very large flock of Canadas that looked like they might be headed South. They seemed too high to be on a feeding flight, but there's no real reason yet for waterfowl to head toward warmer climes. Another of life's mysteries we'll never understand. Do geese fly across the field for the same reason the chicken crossed the road?

swans on local water

Photo by J. Harrington

We weren't as stiff and creaky today as we thought we might be after hauling boxes and furniture yesterday, but we're glad the new home-owners decided to defer today's loads while they sort what's already been delivered.

The Swan

By Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?

Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -

An armful of white blossoms,

A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned

into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,

Biting the air with its black beak?

Did you hear it, fluting and whistling

A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall

Knifing down the black ledges?

And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -

A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet

Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

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