Date: 11/1/24 12:11 pm From: Katarina Hallonblad <khallonblad...> Subject: Re: [VTBIRD] 01 November 2024: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
Ted,
Thank you for your wonderful dispatches! So evocative and poetic.
I look forward to your morning reports and am living the seasons with you from the other side of the Greens. Thank you!
Katarina
> On Nov 1, 2024, at 9:27 AM, Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> wrote:
>
> 6:57 a.m., twenty-nine minutes before sunrise, White River's second latest
> sunrise of 2024. Sixty-one degrees, wind Southwest 7 miles per hour,
> gusting to 18. Overcast—dreary, dull, drizzly. Sky grades to mottled,
> clouds stretching thin in random places—lines of incipient daylight across
> a tarnished heaven—like silver candle sticks needing buffing. Clouds are on
> the move, southwest to northeast. Sun arrives unannounced. Tree crickets in
> chorus, again, after a long absence. (An odd Halloween: I had no
> trick-or-treaters, killed two mosquitoes, and took a dose of doxycycline
> for an infected tick bite.) Here and there, a red oak leaf loosened by the
> wind floats across the road. Woodcock flushes from damp leaves, lead by
> knitting needle bill. Pointed wings astir. A plump bird with a round head.
> My attention draws to woodcock; a brazen leaf hits me. Eleven species of
> birds, including barred owl, red-tailed hawk, hairy woodpecker, northern
> cardinal, American goldfinch, and black-capped chickadee. I rue the day I
> don't see a chickadee, pert and perky, gregarious and tolerant. Liberated
> and integrated—mixed-species flocks. Sets the tone for the woodlands—maybe
> we should pay chickadees more attention.
>
> Red-tail in a maple. Stares me down. Then bolts. Long, lazy flaps and
> glides. Lands farther up the road, on another maple limb, hunched over,
> eyes wide, unblinking. Provocatively, three crows respond—unleash a
> barrage of caws. Hawk departs and leaves crows chattering among themselves.
>
> Last night, my windows opened (the first time in weeks), I heard the barred
> owl call—more wail than bark—one longish note riding the night current
> through my bedroom. Then, on my way home this morning, I saw the owl in a
> roadside hemlock, fifteen feet above the ground, steeply leaning—head to
> talons—peering into the roadside gully. A large feathered lump, vision
> fixed on the warp and weave of grasses and goldenrods ... bent by the
> season. Owl leaned farther, looking, listening, and then fell into a dive.
> Head followed feet. Hit the ground feet first, head pulled back. Rose from
> the gully, meadow vole in tow. Landed on the metal box of an electric line
> twenty feet in front of me. Moved vole from talons to bill, head first,
> then swallowed, eyes closed. Vole idled in the grocery bag crop, a
> *very* noticeable
> bulge.
>
> Like a daydream, the owl withdrew into the shadowed hemlocks.
