Date: 3/14/25 7:04 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 14 March 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
6:45 a.m. (seventeen minutes before sunrise, three hours and four minutes
after I stood listening to an owl under the Blood Moon, fingers knotted in
mittens). Twenty-four degrees (feels colder), wind East-southeast two miles
per hour, gusting to four. Sky, immaculate—clear, clean, cold; pastel
orange, a subtle wash across the east. Beyond the Connecticut River Valley,
hills rolling, one behind the other to the lip of the White Mountains,
softened by sunrise, two F-stops overexposed as though rendered on tracing
paper.
Frost on newly exposed ground. Crystals small. Road puddles iced over. Snow
iron hard ... could support a marching band.
6:48 a.m. Crow *caws*, a world encased in gray light, the sun somewhere
above Maine.
6:65 a.m. White-breasted nuthatch *yanks*.
6:54 a.m. Chickadee sings halfheartedly. Another chickadee answers.
7:00 a.m. Sixty (or so) red-winged blackbirds gather in roadside maple—a
riot of clucks and *kon-ka-reees. *Not a female in the crowd. (Hoping for a
rusty blackbird. No luck.)
7:01 a.m. Tufted titmouse sings—*hear, hear, hear—*unleashing a vocal war.
Titmice, everywhere and noisy.
7:02 a.m. Deep in the woods, pileated drums—a muffled but reverberating
beat, timpani at sunrise. Repeats every few minutes.
7:06 a.m. Robin sings a solo (first of the year), then chases an
intruder—bright breasts against the snow. Two male robins hopping, jumping,
chasing. Wings akimbo, up and down, birds facing each other. It reminds me
of a cock fight without contact, with yellow bills kept to themselves.
Robins dance for territory, peacefully (and entertainingly) expressing real
estate desires. Up and down. Up and Down. Around a crabapple. Jump
together, breasts almost touching. There are many ways to solve a dispute
... Secretary Rubio, take notice.
7:10 a.m. In the presence of blue jays. Four or five different calls.
At the top of the hill, adjacent to a driveway, the ground is littered with
maple scraps. A pileated bill resembling a jackhammer had taken apart a
tree, creating an oblong cavity, fist deep and pocked by ant tunnels. Downy
woodpecker drums, subtle as sunrise color.
Two pairs of crows on a double date survey the hill from roadside maple.
Remain in pairs and then slip their berth. All four reappear in my backyard
harrying owl, which, perched and fluffed, faces the sun—gray-barred stoic
above the compost pile. Aloof and hungry, waiting for a red squirrel.
*Choosing Your Instrument Department:* A male pileated, the red to its
crest touching the base of the upper bill, flies onto sugar maple. Thud. An
audible landing. Walks up the dead upper trunk, almost bouncing. Tests the
timbre in three locations. All muffled, all rejected. Pointed at both ends,
he flies across the road and finds another dead and seasoned maple. Repeats
process twice. Again, both rejected—a very exacting musician. In search of
the perfect drum, pileated leaves me and my dog to our devices.
