Rapt or not?

Yesterday we had an afternoon visit for at least half a hour from a male American kestrel. He spent much of that time perched on the post that had held a bluebird house until a bear smashed it last year or the one before. We brought the bird feeders in early and will leave them down for a couple of days. So far today no kestrels have been in evidence but there are a number of hungry and disgruntled songbirds and woodpeckers on the deck railing.

male American kestrel in our back yard

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we were greeted by bright yellow hoary puccoon and blue spiderwort blossoms on the hillside fields behind the house. An orange butterfly, monarch I think, was nectaring on the puccoon blooms.The flowers, and the butterfly, were observed as I transported garden carts full of leaves accumulated along the foundation on the north side of the house. The leaves were too many and too thick to try just mulching them with a mower. While hauling the leaves off to the wood’s edge, I noticed a distressing number of poison ivy sprouts that will get a dose of Roundup after tomorrow’s rain, or after Sunday’s. Sometimes the joys of country living are enough for me to almost consider moving to a highrise condo. [Not really]

I don’t think we’ve any serious plans for the holiday weekend. We’ll try to get some yard work done between rain showers / thunderstorms, drink coffee and read while it’s raining, and maybe squeeze in some practice with a fly rod when and if the sun shines, meanwhile, watching to be sure a kestrel hasn’t snuck back in for a free lunch at our feeders.

Dispatches from Devereux Slough

Mark Jarman
1952 – 

Black Phoebe

Highwayman of the air, coal-headed, darting
Plunderer of gnat hordes, lasso with beak –

"Surely, that fellow creature on the wing,"
The phoebe thinks, "should fly like this."

                     And loops
His flight path in a wiry noose, takes wing
Like a cast line and hits the living fly,

Ripping it from the fluid of its life.


Devereux Lagoon

Shiners leap ahead of diving cormorants
And killdeer cry, alarming one another.
In an egret's beak, the catch flashes like shook foil.

How well these field glasses scope out the place—
A kestrel sky, serrations of the Madres,
And sand flats darkened by a rare rain shower.

Such an odd peace, as creatures stalk each other


Dispatch from Devereux Slough
               Fall, 2008
The gulls have no idea.
The distant bark of sea lions gives nothing away.
The white-tailed kite flutters and hunts.
The pelicans perform their sloppy angling.
The ironbark eucalyptus dwells in ignorance and beauty.
And the night herons brood in their heronry like yoga masters, each balanced on a twig.
The world has changed. The news will take some time to get here.


From the Garden Toad

A cri de coeur of mud, a heartfelt groan
Of deep damp, mother rainfall and her sire;

A plea from underground, from drooping shade,
From memories of sunlight and clear water;

Reproach of an old grandparent half-forgotten –

All in that voice, announcing a desire
To have sex under the giant philodendron.


Marine Layer

No one is out tonight, but just in case,
A tubaphone's deep echo, like a seine net,
Sweeps under darkness and pulls darkness in
The way a trellis shadow cages light.

To hear the foghorn is to hear your childhood,
If you were lucky to have lived near ocean,
Moving again into your neighborhood.


Overcast on Ellwood Mesa

Hawks like it. Wings cast no shadow, hovering,

And white crowned sparrows are easier to pick out
Among the foxtails, scurrying like mice.

Under the gray cloud cover, blue birds course
Like running water through the fennel stalks,

And the shrike, color of the sky, keeps watch
From the barbed wire of the startling green golf course.


September Song

Those phosphorescent shoulders of the night surf
Passing beneath the pier,
                     as we looked down,
Were an agitation in the falling water
Of creatures set to glowing,
                     all together,
By sudden apprehension, which we perceived
As incandescent wonder,
                     our eyes feasting,
Our hearts filled by the light of crashing down.


Shorebreak, 3 a.m.

At night the swell and crash, the swell and crash,
As waves rush forward, peak, and then collapse
Gasping and giving up a ghost of spray,
Sounds from a distance like a low-voiced hush.

Awake, alone, at the right hour to hear it,
That hush, for all the sleeplessness behind it,
Can lead one, walking wounded, back to sleep.


Sundowner

Waking at nightfall like the other monsters,
The vampire and the moonstruck wolfman, arson
Is hardly required to set your body burning,

Thirsting for dryness, dry brush, stucco houses.

Flame wind, ember wind, wind of moonlit smoke,
Rolling a fog of ash downhill to sea,

The sun's down is the harsh fur of your burning.


Surgeons

The egret is more patient than any watcher
And lances its incision when its stillness
Has made one look away.
                     Its anesthetic
Is stillness, and it numbs the water's skin.

The pelican takes a hatchet to the water,
The egret plies a scalpel.
                        They extract fish,
But one by smash and gulp, and one by stillness.


The Crystal Ship
       Sands Beach, Goleta

The famous rock star thought up his famous rock song
While gazing out at the oil derrick offshore.

Lit up at night it might look, to stoned eyes,
Like a faceted galleon perfect for a song.

Tonight, as sunset gives off its green flash,
The derrick has that look.
                     And so does the oil barge
Docked to it, dead black, filling up with cargo.


To a Dead Sea Lion at Sands Beach

You had returned from dry land back to water,
Preferring it, and welcomed the new limbs,
Webbed to conceal your toe and finger bones.

You rolled along the surf, all memory
Of other motion swept back in your wake,
And ended here, among fly-buzzing kelp.

Sleek swimmer drowned,
            and with your unwebbed bones.


Heaven

When we are reunited after death,
The owls will call among the eucalyptus,
The white tailed kite will arc across the mesa,
And sunset cast orange light from the Pacific
Against the golden bush and eucalyptus
Where flowers and fruit and seeds appear all seasons
And our paired silhouettes are waiting for us.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Wrapped up in raptors

The air temperature will remain below freezing all day but, with mostly clear skies, the sun’s warmth is enough to cause notable melting, especially on and around dark surfaces. At least one blogger we know is relishing the break from seemingly endless cloudy days augmented by perpetually repeating snow showers. We now have enough snow in our area that twice in the past few days I’ve had to clear the top of a snow bank from the house number reflective sign put up by the township. The town plow buries it in plow wash with almost every pass. Meanwhile, several neighbors and I spent time yesterday clearing snow banks from around our mail boxes because the town plow has been leaving a barely cleared wide strip on the road’s edge where the mail boxes live.

barred owl, napping

Photo by J. Harrington

The barred owl is back, again perched on the same branch. A bit ago we also had a peregrine falcon perch briefly on the deck railing, then on a branch of the oak about 10 or 15 feet from the owl, from which branch the falcon missed an attack on an incoming bird headed for the feeder. It may, once again, be time this winter to take down the feeders for a couple of days. Warmer weather later this week should make it easier for the locals to adapt and then we can return the feeders when it starts to snow again on Thursday or Friday. There are what look like wing feather marks in the snow on the deck where a winged predator (the owl?) tried to capture a squirrel that was under the bbq grill or dove under it at the predator's approach. Since I’ve watched the owl and the squirrels and the songbirds ignore each other over the past week or so, I’m suspicious the predator may have been the peregrine but have no evidence that isn’t circumstantial.

We adjusted fairly easily to the hour’s shift in sunrise and sunset yesterday. I suspect the fact that the sky was covered with clouds all day helped. Since animals don’t use clocks other than natural ones, they don’t have to adjust twice a year. That makes me wonder if we humans aren’t being arbitrary, if not capricious, in our efforts to impose a mathematical rigor on the hours, days, months and years.

Canticle

William Griffith - 1877-1935

Devoutly worshipping the oak
Wherein the barred owl stares,
The little feathered forest folk
Are praying sleepy prayers.

Praying the summer to be long
And drowsy to the end,
And daily full of sun and song,
That broken hopes may mend.

Praying the golden age to stay
Until the whip-poor-will
Appoints a windy moving day,
And hurries from the hill.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Refreshing thaws and paws in the winter’s season

These above freezing temperatures have me almost giddy. The dogs are enjoying our walks and spending much more time sniffing their way around. Neither has hobbled back to the house for the past couple of days. May all of next year’s weather be at least as pleasant as the last few days.

looks that say “do we have to go out?"

Photo by J. Harrington

The tactic of taking down the bird houses so the birds won’t congregate and attract a hawk seems to be working. At least we’ve seen few songbirds and no hawks so far today. I’m thinking New Year’s Day will be a good time to return the feeders to their hangers.

I’m starting to think of the “good old days” as the times when life had a more not less stable rhythm to it, one that lasted for more than ten minutes or so; when seasonal weather was predominantly seasonal; when your chances of arriving on time, or close to it, taking an airline flight were more than random. I have very strong doubts that human evolution has prepared us for the degree of volatility we’ve injected into daily life. I’m also deeply concerned by the inadequacy our institutional and governmental responses. So, in accord with my efforts to be more positive than not in my recent postings, I want to close out this year with a recommendation that we all seriously consider the arguments made by David Whyte in Ecocide – Kill The Corporation Before It Kills Us. You can read a more detailed review here.

Once the holiday season has passed, I intend to read the book and, if it’s as telling as I expect, devote some time and postings here to exploring how to do what the title calls for. I’m positive that allowing thieves and charlatans to hide behind corporate shields is not the way to restorative development or a sustainable future.

Revolutionary Letter #3

Diane di Prima - 1934-2020

store water; make a point of filling your bathtub
at the first news of trouble: they turned off the water
in the 4th ward for a whole day during the Newark riots;
or better yet make a habit
of keeping the tub clean and full when not in use
change this once a day, it should be good enough
for washing, flushing toilets when necessary
and cooking, in a pinch, but it’s a good idea
to keep some bottled water handy too
get a couple of five gallon jugs and keep them full
for cooking

//

store food—dry stuff like rice and beans stores best
goes farthest. SALT VERY IMPORTANT: it’s health and energy
healing too, keep a couple pounds
sea salt around, and, because we’re spoiled, some tins
tuna, etc. to keep up morale—keep up the sense
of ‘balanced diet’ ‘protein intake’ remember
the stores may be closed for quite some time, the trucks
may not enter your section of the city for weeks, you can cool it indefinitely

//

with 20 lb brown rice
20 lb whole wheat flour
10 lb cornmeal
10 lb good beans—kidney or soy
5 lb sea salt
2 qts good oil
dried fruit and nuts
add nutrients and a sense of luxury
to this diet, a squash or coconut
in a cool place in your pad will keep six months.

//

remember we are all used to eating less
than the ‘average American’ and take it easy
before we
ever notice we’re hungry the rest of the folk will be starving
used as they are to meat and fresh milk daily
and help will arrive, until the day no help arrives
and then you’re on your own.

//

hoard matches, we aren’t good
at rubbing sticks together any more
a tinder box is useful, if you can work it
don’t count on gas stove, gas heater
electric light
keep hibachi and charcoal, CHARCOAL STARTER a help
kerosene lamp and candles, learn to keep warm
with breathing
remember the blessed American habit of bundling

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Raptor migration #phenology

Have you visited Hawk Ridge in Duluth? If not, the next couple of months is usually a peak time if you’re interested in foliage viewing  and hawk migration. This year maybe not so much, depending on the wind direction and smoke plumes from the wildfires scattered over northern Minnesota.

I’ve no idea whether the smoke may affect the migration of the raptors that usually pass over Hawk Ridge. The internet and search engines yielded this assessment of the effects of smoke on raptors, but nothing on migration disruption. The Audubon Society has an assessment of how wildfires affect birds. If there’s still smoke plumes in northern Minnesota, it would be wise to protect your own lungs and wait until 2022 when we hope conditions will improve.

Taking an optimistic view that the wildfires soon will be contained and the smoke will dissipate, here’s a timeline we photographed several years ago at Hawk Ridge.

Hawk Ridge primary migration timing

Photo by J. Harrington

The current count for this year has been dominated by songbirds and nighthawks, although some raptors have been seen. If you follow the link on the raptor count, and check last year’s dates, you might be able to get a sense of when the  migration peaked.

Evening Hawk

By Robert Penn Warren

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through 

Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, 

Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding 

The last tumultuous avalanche of 

Light above pines and the guttural gorge, 

The hawk comes. 

His wing 

Scythes down another day, his motion 

Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear 

The crashless fall of stalks of Time. 

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. 

Look! Look! he is climbing the last light 

Who knows neither Time nor error, and under 

Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings 

Into shadow. 

Long now, 

The last thrush is still, the last bat 

Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom 

Is ancient, too, and immense. The star 

Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain. 

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear 

The earth grind on its axis, or history 

Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Today is a day of days

 For Father's Day

Those Winter Sundays

By Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

For Bald Eagle Day

Eagle Poem

By Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty. 

 

bald eagle pair

Photo by J. Harrington

For Summer Solstice

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Is there a phenology of migration triggers?

Yesterday afternoon we drove a circuit on the local roads around a large chunk of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area in Chisago County. We were looking for robins and red-winged blackbirds. Not a feather of either was to be seen, although we did see an osprey and two turkey hens on the northern leg, plus the waterfowl we've been reporting, and the Better Half spotted a cluster of pussy willows near a wetland on the southern leg.

Spring arrival, male red-winged blackbird

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we had to drive the southern leg of the same loop to run an errand, picking up heart worm and flea & tick meds for the dogs. Blond SiSi showed the season's first tick the day before yesterday. On our way to get the meds, we noticed two robins and two or three red-winged blackbirds. Where were they yesterday? Did they just arrive overnight? Was the time of day a significant factor? We'll probably never know, but their recent appearance puts the season's migration phenology back into a more usual framework.

Elsewhere, Journey North shows that both robins and blackbirds have been arriving in much of Minnesota only within the past week or two, while monarch butterflies and ruby-throated hummingbirds are still well south of our North Country. According to All About Birds:

The mechanisms initiating migratory behavior vary and are not always completely understood. Migration can be triggered by a combination of changes in day length, lower temperatures, changes in food supplies, and genetic predisposition.

Redwing Blackbird

Feet firmly perch 
thinnest stalks, reeds, bulrush. 
Until all at once, they attend my 
female form, streaked throat, brownness.

Three fly equidistant 
around me, flashing. 
Each, in turn, calls territorial 
trills, beckons ok-a-li, ok-a-li! 

Spreads his wings, extends 
inner muscle quivering red 
epaulet bands uniquely bolden. 

Turn away each suitor, 
mind myself my audience. 
Select another to consider, 
He in turn quiver thrills. 

Leave for insects. 
Perhaps one male follows. 
Maybe a few brood of young, 
line summertime. 

Silver Maple samaras 
wing wind, spread clusters 
along with mine, renewing Prairie. 

As summer closes, I leave 
dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, 
mosquitoes, moths, spiders, crickets for 

grain, see, Sunflower; 
join thousands to flock Sky— 
grackles, blackbirds, cowbirds, starlings— 
Swarming like distant smoke clouds, rising.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

(un)seasonal(?) surprises

Probably the season, and the unsettled weather, had a lot to do with the number and kinds of wildlife we saw this morning as we drove to pick up a share box from our autumn Community Supported Agriculture farm. Several flocks of Canada geese traced their way high across the cloudy sky, looking for newly harvested fields that needed gleaning. Three whitetail deer were picking their way through what, a couple of weeks ago, was a soy bean field. Numerous flocks of migrating songbirds arose from roadside or fields' edge as we passed by, but the most astonishing of all we saw is what we've come to think was a family of bald eagles all perched, briefly, in the same tree.

When we first noticed them, we could view one obvious bald eagle (white head and tail) and what looked to be a larger bird that lacked the characteristic head and tail coloring. Could it be a golden eagle? There are several reports of golden eagles being observed in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin, especially at this time of year.

3 of 4 camera-shy eagles

Photo by J. Harrington

As we slowly drove past the tree holding the birds, we saw a second bald eagle, about the same size as the first, that also appeared slightly smaller than the all brownish one. While trying to get a picture, a fourth bird soared in. This one matched the coloring and size of the larger, brown bird. So, did we now have a pair of bald eagles and a pair of golden eagles or, was it a pair of adult eagles with their larger juveniles, a family of four? We'll never know for sure but, after doing some quick on-line research, we're leaning toward four of a kind rather than two pair.

snow showers: preview of coming attractions?

Photo by J. Harrington

As we drove home, snow flakes began to fall. For half an hour or so it felt as if we were inside one of those old-fashioned snow globes. The flakes were large and fell very slowly against a backdrop of varied colors of leaves still on the trees: bronze, brass, copper and gold. As we write this, the morning snow has melted and mid-day graupel is down-bursting. These previews of coming "attractions" briefly lent a magical patina to this morning's array of seeing some neighbors.

Eagle Poem

By Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Celebrate Women's History Month, Vote tomorrow!

An overnight refreeze made the driveway treacherous walking this morning. We (SiSi and I) navigated the slipping and sliding successfully, albeit with cursing and muttering on my part.  The road and the shoulder are clear and dry, so once we've left the driveway behind, yak trax are counterproductive. Maybe Santa will bring me a flame thrower for Christmas this year. All we need is a path a couple of feet wide free of ice.

Our objective for the day, other than not slipping and falling and breaking something, has been attained. New fishing licenses for both Minnesota and Wisconsin are now in the possession of the two anglers in this household. Next on the Agenda is a new state park sticker for the Jeep's windshield.

two bald eagles perched at Kelley Land and Cattle Co.

Photo by J. Harrington

We covered much of the Northern half of Washington County getting our licenses. On the way to Cabela's and back we saw one small flock of turkeys, plus a pair, or two single, bald eagles in a different location. Forty plus years ago, when I first moved to Minnesota, eagle sightings were rare. Now, at least in our general area, they're pretty common. Once we stopped poisoning raptors with DDT, and put some of them on the endangered species list, they recovered nicely, for the most part. Seeing eagles weekly, if not daily, makes me feel better about the part of the country in which I live. The number of urban eagle nests has been increasing for awhile and there have been recent reports of golden eagles in the  St. Croix valley. We'll remember to keep our eyes open and see if we can spot any of the latter as we head toward some of our favorite trout streams.

bald eagle perched near new St. Croix bridge at Stillwater

Photo by J. Harrington

We missed it yesterday so today we want to acknowledge that March is Women's History Month. Of the women poets with whom I'm familiar, and the  list is long and growing, Maya Angelou offers a poem I think is a great way to celebrate this second day of the month.

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou - 1928-2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

December thaw, solstice observations

It is not every day we get to see an osprey and a bald eagle on different legs of the same trip. We saw the osprey perched atop a telephone pole in Crystal this morning. Don't ask what an osprey was doing near the heart of the Twin Cities metro area when almost everything is frozen over. As we neared home, returning from Crystal, we were buzzed by a bald eagle over old Highway 61 in Wyoming.

bald eagle feeding on whitetail deer

Photo by J. Harrington

I'm always delighted and impressed when given an opportunity to see either of these large raptors. Although far from sure about it, but I have the impression some eagles may be overwintering in our neck of the woods. Might that be a sign of climate change? Eagles and ospreys are both fish eaters, but eagles eat at least their share of carrion. Ospreys, not so much. According to Audubon, the osprey commonly breeds in Minnesota but should, at this time of year, be wintering on the Gulf Coast. One of the nicer aspects of living in Minnesota, as far as I'm concerned, is that seeing eagles, ospreys, wild turkeys, coyotes, and a variety of other, large, wildlife, while not common, is also not rare. Does the word infrequent seem appropriate?

celebrating Winter Solstice

Photo by J. Harrington

Last night the Better Half and I briefly enjoyed a Solstice celebratory blaze in our fire pit. I could feel my atavistic impulses bubbling to the surface. No doubt soon I'll be rereading some Jim Harrison poems, similar to this one.

Man Dog

By Jim Harrison

I envied the dog lying in the yard

so I did it. But there was a pebble

under my flank so I got up and looked

for the pebble, brushed it away

and lay back down. My dog thus far

overlooked the pebble. I guess it's her thick

Lab fur. With my head downhill the blood gorged

me with ideas. Not good. Got up. Turned around. Now I

see hundreds of infinitesimal ants. I'm on an

ant home. I get up and move five feet.

The dog hasn't moved from her serene place.

Now I'm rather too near a thicket where

I saw a big black snake last week that might decide

to join me. I moved near the actual dog this time

but she got up and went under the porch. She doesn't like

it when I'm acting weird. I'm failing as a dog

when my own kind rejects me, but doing better

than when I envied birds, the creature the least

like us, therefore utterly enviable. To be sure

I cheeped a lot but didn't try to fly.

We humans can take off but are no good at landing.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Do Summer temperatures slow raptor migration? #phenology

A hummingbird showed up at the feeder yesterday. Perhaps with today's temperatures in the mid-80's it thinks Summer has returned. Further North, numbers of raptors should be heading South over Hawk Ridge in Duluth. The migration timing shown below is from several years ago, but we doubt if there's been much change.

Hawk Ridge raptor migration timing

Photo by J. Harrington

Candidly, we haven't been paying much attention to the wind directions near Duluth but, if you're headed in that direction, you might want to check the wind and weather forecast to see if you can pick a better day to visit Hawk Ridge.

Hawk Ridge raptor migration pattern

Photo by J. Harrington

This Saturday there'll be an Indigenous Foods Expo in Duluth, so, if you're looking for an excuse to head in that direction, now you have one. As if anyone needed excuses to head up North and see Lake Superior at this time of year!

(We spent a couple of hours in the dentist chair today so our posting is short and sweet. We need a nap or something.)

The Hawk's Cry in Autumn

By Joseph Brodsky

Wind from the northwestern quarter is lifting him high above

the dove-gray, crimson, umber, brown

Connecticut Valley. Far beneath,

chickens daintily pause and move

unseen in the yard of the tumbledown

farmstead, chipmunks blend with the heath.

Now adrift on the airflow, unfurled, alone,

all that he glimpses—the hills’ lofty, ragged

ridges, the silver stream that threads

quivering like a living bone

of steel, badly notched with rapids,

the townships like strings of beads

strewn across New England. Having slid down to nil

thermometers—those household gods in niches—

freeze, inhibiting thus the fire

of leaves and churches’ spires. Still,

no churches for him. In the windy reaches,

undreamt of by the most righteous choir,

he soars in a cobalt-blue ocean, his beak clamped shut,

his talons clutched tight into his belly

—claws balled up like a sunken fist—

sensing in each wisp of down the thrust

from below, glinting back the berry

of his eyeball, heading south-southeast

to the Rio Grande, the Delta, the beech groves and farther still:

to a nest hidden in the mighty groundswell

of grass whose edges no fingers trust,

sunk amid forest’s odors, filled

with splinters of red-speckled eggshell,

with a brother or a sister’s ghost.

The heart overgrown with flesh, down, feather, wing,

pulsing at feverish rate, nonstopping,

propelled by internal heat and sense,

the bird goes slashing and scissoring

the autumnal blue, yet by the same swift token,

enlarging it at the expense

of its brownish speck, barely registering on the eye,

a dot, sliding far above the lofty

pine tree; at the expense of the empty look

of that child, arching up at the sky,

that couple that left the car and lifted

their heads, that woman on the stoop.

But the uprush of air is still lifting him

higher and higher. His belly feathers

feel the nibbling cold. Casting a downward gaze,

he sees the horizon growing dim,

he sees, as it were, the features

of the first thirteen colonies whose

chimneys all puff out smoke. Yet it’s their total within his sight

that tells the bird of his elevation,

of what altitude he’s reached this trip.

What am I doing at such a height?

He senses a mixture of trepidation

and pride. Heeling over a tip

of wing, he plummets down. But the resilient air

bounces him back, winging up to glory,

to the colorless icy plane.

His yellow pupil darts a sudden glare

of rage, that is, a mix of fury

and terror. So once again

he turns and plunges down. But as walls return

rubber balls, as sins send a sinner to faith, or near,

he’s driven upward this time as well!

He! whose innards are still so warm!

Still higher! Into some blasted ionosphere!

That astronomically objective hell

of birds that lacks oxygen, and where the milling stars

play millet served from a plate or a crescent.

What, for the bipeds, has always meant

height, for the feathered is the reverse.

Not with his puny brain but with shriveled air sacs

he guesses the truth of it: it’s the end.

And at this point he screams. From the hooklike beak

there tears free of him and flies ad luminem

the sound Erinyes make to rend

souls: a mechanical, intolerable shriek,

the shriek of steel that devours aluminum;

“mechanical,” for it’s meant

for nobody, for no living ears:

not man’s, not yelping foxes’,

not squirrels’ hurrying to the ground

from branches; not for tiny field mice whose tears

can’t be avenged this way, which forces

them into their burrows. And only hounds

lift up their muzzles. A piercing, high-pitched squeal,

more nightmarish than the D-sharp grinding

of the diamond cutting glass,

slashes the whole sky across. And the world seems to reel

for an instant, shuddering from this rending.

For the warmth burns space in the highest as

badly as some iron fence down here

brands incautious gloveless fingers.

We, standing where we are, exclaim

“There!” and see far above the tear

that is a hawk, and hear the sound that lingers

in wavelets, a spider skein

swelling notes in ripples across the blue vault of space

whose lack of echo spells, especially in October,

an apotheosis of pure sound.

And caught in this heavenly patterned lace,

starlike, spangled with hoarfrost powder,

silver-clad, crystal-bound,

the bird sails to the zenith, to the dark-blue high

of azure. Through binoculars we foretoken

him, a glittering dot, a pearl.

We hear something ring out in the sky,

like some family crockery being broken,

slowly falling aswirl,

yet its shards, as they reach our palms, don’t hurt

but melt when handled. And in a twinkling

once more one makes out curls, eyelets, strings,

rainbowlike, multicolored, blurred

commas, ellipses, spirals, linking

heads of barley, concentric rings—

the bright doodling pattern the feather once possessed,

a map, now a mere heap of flying

pale flakes that make a green slope appear

white. And the children, laughing and brightly dressed,

swarm out of doors to catch them, crying

with a loud shout in English, “Winter's here!”

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Spring sightings (con't.)

Yesterday afternoon we noticed a bald eagle gliding over the house. Later, when one of the dogs took us to check for the mail, we startled that eagle, plus another, out of the trees in the woodlot South of the house. Might it be that we have a nesting pair of bald eagles in the neighborhood? That would be cool.

hen or tom turkey?

Photo by J. Harrington

Late in the day we noticed a pair of whitetails browsing along the woods line West of the house. Based mostly on the differences in their sizes, we suspect it's the same pair that was noshing at the front bird feeder for much of the Winter. The gray in their coats is becoming Summer-red. Then, this morning, we watched a single turkey hen (? couldn't see the front to check for a beard) walk up the slope behind the house and across the field into the West woods. After a Winter of very sparse wildlife sightings, the activity of the past 24 hours is encouraging. Could it be a reward since we finally got around to closing up the bluebird house?

a pair of whitetails at wood's edge

Photo by J. Harrington

Cold Spring

By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

The prodigals return, to... ?

Late yesterday, driving through North Branch along Highway 95, we saw five bald eagles! Four (2 pair?) were perched in a tree on the South side of the road. The fifth was farther East, standing in a field of corn stubble. Earlier in the day, we saw several pairs of swans on various local ponds.

bufflehead, ring-necked and bluebill ducks

Photo by J. Harrington

Today we noticed some bluebills (scaup) and bufflehead resting on a Sunrise River pool and a couple of pelicans headed North as we drove over the Mississippi River on I-694. Returning home later, we heard the year's first thunder as we drove through rain showers. Briefly, earlier this morning, it felt almost like Spring weather, as the sun almost came out from behind the clouds. Mother Nature always has been a bit of a tease. For later this week she's teasing us with a threat of returning to Winter for a spell, with the prospect of snow on Thursday and Friday. Clearly, this will not be a year of an early Spring arrival in this part of the North Country. That's often the case.

Spring thunder: rain or snow clouds?

Photo by J. Harrington

Over the years we've lived in Minnesota, we've become accustomed to a frustratingly brief transition between Winter and Summer. We fully expect some week soon to begin with high temperatures in the 40s or 50s and end with daytime highs in the upper 70s or low 80s and then, basically, settle there until late July or August.

The Ponds

by Mary Oliver

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

It's heeere, and Springing out all over!

In this week of Vernal Equinox, 2019, while coming back from delivering our "tax organizer," we saw a bald eagle perched on a tree overlooking the Sunrise River. It may, or may not, be the same eagle we've seen airborne from time to time during the past few weeks. Having eagles living in the neighborhood is definitely a plus. In fact, that was the second eagle we saw today. The other one was nesting in a tree North of Highway 610 as we headed toward Anoka.

March: bald eagle perched in bare tree

Photo by J. Harrington

The edges of the Sunrise are beginning to show softening of the ice cover downstream of the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area pools. No signs of open water or waterfowl yet. Seeing arrivals of one or the other or both this week would not be a surprise. Getting out and watching one or the other, or both, will be a pleasure.

Sunrise River: ice cover softening

Photo by J. Harrington

One can, if one slows down and looks carefully, see leaf buds swelling on many roadside trees. The red maples in front of the house have actually burst their buds within the last day or so. We're not sure how some of the wilder creatures feel, nor if the water itself tires of being pent up, but we're more than ready to start celebrating the freedom of Spring.

Last Spring

By Gottfried BennTranslated by Michael Hofmann

Fill yourself up with the forsythias

and when the lilacs flower, stir them in too

with your blood and happiness and wretchedness,

the dark ground that seems to come with you.

Sluggish days. All obstacles overcome.

And if you say: ending or beginning, who knows,

then maybe—just maybe—the hours will carry you

into June, when the roses blow.

Notes:
Read the translator's notes on this poem. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Halfway there, almost!

Come Tuesday, two days from now, we'll be halfway through meteorological Winter of 2018 - 2019. The local marshes, currently looking vacant and locked solid in ice, in six or eight weeks will be teeming with waterfowl. Today, for the second day in a row, we saw a bald eagle. This one flew over parts of the Carlos Avery marshes and landed in a tree overlooking the future homes of ducks and geese. In anticipation of those warmer days, we've added a small pot of daffodils to the middle of the dining room table. Although the West-facing windowsill in the living room has several orchids in bloom, they don't count because they're tropical instead of temperate. After living in Minnesota for decades, we're still trying to wrap our head around the idea that this state has an abundance of native orchids.

bald eagle in Winter tree

Photo by J. Harrington

On the living room's Southern windowsill, three amaryllis are belatedly growing. They're the same plants that bloomed near Christmas a year ago. They don't really count because they're native to South America and are associated with Christmas, not Springtime. While Narcissus aren't native to Minnesota, they've been grown here long enough that we consider them naturalized and they are among the earliest Spring-blooming flowers, which is what we are looking forward to, while trying to not, as our mother used to warn us, wish our life away.

last Christmas' amaryllis

Photo by J. Harrington

Between now and the end of meteorological and astronomical Winter, we expect to experience more Arctic blasts, possibly a blizzard, or two, or three, and come March and April we usually enter an extended mud season. No matter. As Shelley asks, as he concludes his Ode to the West Wind,

"... O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

In enjoyment, if not celebration, of Winter, today the Better Half is making soup to accompany the artisan sourdough bread we baked yesterday. It's the rare July or August day when baking bread and making soup is timely. For now we're still trying to make the best of what's available to us. The more we practice that, the better we get at it and the happier we are.

Snow White

Katherine Riegel

I dreamt I woke in winter—
even the river
silent, its tongue caught mid-
sentence, like mine
when someone looks at me
too closely. It had been years

since I understood winter
so well I knew it to be inside
my own bone-cage, since I had
smelled that kind of white.

White of the frozen rabbit
my spaniel dragged in from the back
yard, white of horse-breath in the barn,
white of birds so desperate
for seed they pretend colorlessness—

except the cardinal, drop of heat,
too neat to be blood, too brave
to be symbol. I woke in winter

and almost-knew what I had always
almost-known, back in those dark
five o’clock walks home for dinner:

something about loneliness living
in the well of the throat, something
about fur and burrowing
and black eyes
waiting for the thaw.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.