Inside Out
We are blessed to have two nature conservancy areas
just to the west of our property.
Between them there is plenty of open water that attracts a lot of
marsh-loving birds. In the spring, and
again in the fall it is the large birds that seem to demand attention; such as
sandhill cranes, Canadian geese, and a variety of waterfowl, depending on who
is passing through on any given day.
Even if you somehow managed to ignore the incoming and outgoing flights,
it is impossible to ignore the primordial bursts from the cranes and the urgent
honking of the geese.
It is the lands of sunrise and sunset that brim over
with the most activity. I don’t have a
way to measure the footcandles of light, but I know the look of it, that calls
forth first a single goose honk that in turn triggers a crescendo. Imagine tipping a water picture filled with
water ever so slowly, almost imperceptively, until a single drop trickles to
the lip of the spout, hangs there suspended for second, and then finally free-falling
to make the smallest splash. But,
following that single droplet, you suddenly tip the spout down so that all of
the remaining water gushes out all at once.
And, of course the cranes are jolted into voice as well.
While it sounds like chaos, the geese and the cranes
sort out the meaning easily enough. It
is breakfast time. The geese, in flocks
of 20-30 birds begin lifting off the pond surface. The cranes mix right in, albeit in smaller
bunches of 6 – 12 birds. Each group
seems to have its preference as to grain fields or water plants as they radiate
outward from the pond in various directions.
It doesn’t even take much more than a few minutes or so, and the pond’s
surface lies still and empty, except for a bundle of mallards that seem content
to let the sky clear out before stirring.
One morning last week Michelle and I had a different
experience. I had already been listening
for a few minutes when I felt Michelle nudge me. “Do you hear that?” she asked. “Hard not to,” I answered. We had been enjoying very warm temperatures
for early October, so the bedroom window was opened about six inches or so. It seemed like thousands of single piercing notes
were pouring in through that open window.
Michelle was the first to get out of bed, pull back the curtains and
take a look. “Oh my gosh! You have to see this. I dutifully got out of bed, came up behind
her and peaked out the pulled-back curtain.
The entire back yard was filled with what must have several
thousand grackles. While there were some
spots where they were a little more spread out, there was only inches between
many of them. It looked like every
branch of every tree and shrub was filled with perched grackles, with others
flying in, or trying to fly in, as finding an open branch to land on was
proving difficult.
I know you’ve also seen those flocks of blackbirds,
sometimes redwings, sometimes grackles, or even starlings in either the spring
or fall migrations that appear in the sky like huge, undulating black-speckled clouds. Unlike the geese that hold tight, businesslike
flocks that drive steadily onward, these blackbird flocks look themselves almost
as living larger creatures, swelling and then shrinking as if the creature was
inhaling and exhaling.
For whatever reason, something in our backyard looked
inviting for a rest and feeding as they had likely been flying most of the
night. I really am not sure what they
were feasting on, but they seemed to be relishing something. Interestingly, our feeders full of a variety of
seed all hung untouched. While we should have had a variety of
feathered friends visiting early in the morning, they all seemed content to
keep their distance.
Each of the grackles seemed to be chirping all at
once, so I’m not sure what the signal was, but as if each bird was connected
somehow to those immediate to them, they all lifted up into the sky and headed
southeast. For a moment it was like
being inside their black-speckled cloud.
Perhaps these would use the Lake Michigan shoreline for direction, since
it was only fifteen miles or so the way they seemed headed. If they meant to tell us, we didn’t
understand.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
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