Common Birds XVI - Herring Gull
Wednesday, April 12
Spring has kicked off its shoes and made itself at home. The stream is resplendent with life. I spot two wood ducks, a drake and hen, walking over the soft ground between the meanders. I’ve never seen a wood duck walk before. They take wide steps, swinging out their legs and half turning their bodies to plant each foot. In the grass, they look so small. A northern flicker darts away, yellow feathers spread, white rump like a fleeing deer. A warbler hops from branch to branch close by. I usually don’t stop next to the stream, but warblers are an exception. The ducks are terrified that I’ve stopped moving. Walking humans, even driving cars, are fine with them, but a still human is a terror to all ducks other than mallards. So, they flap away, which is too bad. What were they up to? Through my monocular, the warbler is a pine warbler. A small, beautiful bird with a vibrant yellow head and chest and black and white wings. I used to see them in the tall pine trees at the entrance to a cemetery back in the North Country.
At the pond, all the logs that can hold a turtle do hold a turtle. Turtles, turtles, turtles. If only my life had the flexibility to bask in the warm when there was warmth. And today is gloriously warm! I’m wearing a tee shirt and no jacket. I see chickadees and goldfinches and other flicker in the canopy. Leaves unfold and unfold from branches and every tree is budding. I approach the footbridge slowly. Monday (today is Wednesday), I saw a muskrat swim from the pond out into the river. It was about as long as my smaller car, fur bristling with moisture, doggy paddling along. When it was under h the bridge, I hurried as silently as I could onto the boards, hoping to see it pass over onto the other side. I swam out from underneath, continued unchanged for a moment, then noticed me and dove under the water. The muskrat is all grace underwater, pushing with alternating strokes of its hind legs. Quickly it disappeared into the haze of river water. Today, the river is choppy and empty. I notice a herring gull and following it into the air, I see another and a third and a whole host flying like a whirlwind, high above the waves.
I don’t know why they fly like this, or why I am awestruck by it, but they do and I am.
Walking back to the office, I’m thinking about what to write. Maybe I can pull on the thread with the turtles, and lightly complain about the unnaturalness of my factory hours. We conform the rhythms of our lives to capital and not capital to the rhythms of our lives. Wendell Berry might be proud. I pause for a UPS truck to rumble past. Suddenly there’s a hawk ten feet above my left shoulder. Its presence explodes into my awareness. The hawk is slate gray and a little small. It’s head is turned to look at me. Under its eye is a band of orange which runs to its chest, which I can’t see. It looks at me. There is none of the fury that I expect from raptors. It falls out of the tree, catching itself and sweeping low across the road and into a thicket. I chase it over the road and through an adjoining parking lot. I finally catch sight of it, perched about 100 feet away and mostly hidden by thin branches. I think it’s a sharp shinned hawk. They’re rare here. I break my gaze for a moment. It disappears.
