Date: 1/13/25 6:49 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 13 January 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
7:13 a.m. (seven minutes before sunrise). Fourteen degrees (a virtual
heatwave). Wind: South-southeast, one mile per hour, gustless and gutless,
barely a whisper—even beech leaves idle. Sky: marbled gray and white,
infused with pink morphing to lavender-gray. An orange bloom in the
east—rich with possibility (if not heat). Eventually, the sky devolves into
soiled white, spitting snow.
Three blue jays gather grit on the recently sanded road. Two others watch
intently—a study of picking and swallowing, head back, bill to the sky.
Sixteen mourning doves wait their turn, flying from roadside maple to
pasture oak, wings whining—the soundtrack of the sunrise.
Department of Two-way Traffic: downy woodpecker prospecting for sleeping
insects and spider eggs walks up maple trunk, picking and probing, two toes
in front and two behind (posture known as *zygodactyl*), tail pressed to
bark. White-breasted nuthatch walks down maple, three toes in front and one
oversized, long-clawed toe—the *hallux*—behind (posture known as
*anisodactyl*). It's a short tail, not a brace. Birds pass, almost touching.
Tufted titmice and black-capped chickadees call. Several sing
(optimistically) bathed in ephemeral sunshine. Then, the sun and song
depart. Northern cardinal in out of the lilacs, a flash of red. Then, he
sulks as though punished in the shrub's interior while a lone junco picks
snowless leaf litter.
Saga of an irritated crow: Flies low over the pine canopy, disgorging *caws*,
bitter pronouncements. Enters a weft of limbs.
Out flies a barred owl, a shadow among shadows, deeper into the woods, away
from the road. Crow follows, screaming. Owl flees again and disappears
into sunless evergreens. Crow veers off, content. Caws soften and
eventually stops.
