Date: 11/14/25 5:30 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 14 November 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
6:22 a.m. (twenty minutes before sunrise). Twenty-six degrees, wind
West-northwest four miles per hour, gusting to fifteen.
As the dawn unfolds, descending in the west, the crescent moon, in the
company of stars, bright like polished silver ... then tarnishes, fades,
vanishes. The clear sky chokes, becomes gray and disheveled as the North
Atlantic.
6:24 a.m. Chickadee and red-breasted nuthatch call in the gloom.
6:38 a.m. Six conversive crows head into the wind. A seventh, on the crown
of a maple, screams—a hilltop cryer—over and over, a voice understood by
the woodland multitudes. An agitated bird with a low threshold for boredom,
cawing ... loudly. Perhaps, a nearby owl or a hawk or a bobcat on tiptoes.
(Crow-speak reminds me of Hebrew but in reverse: I recite the language but
have *no *idea what I'm saying.) Every living thing understands crow. (A nd
jay.)
Ripples of cold pink in the east. Then, molten orange ushers the sun. A
red-tailed hawk screams. Screams again. Flushes from an oak. Through a weft
of limbs, I glimpse the big bird, cream-colored undersides, sliding through
a forest clearing. Slow, rhythmic wingbeats. Over the east side of
Hurricane Hill, hawk dips into the river valley. Its vigil over, crow heads
into the wind.
The pulse of goldfinches that arrived three days ago is still here. In the
meadow. On the feeders. Undulating over tired goldenrod. Juncos stick to
the ground, darting across the road, chipping in the shadows. A robin on a
winterberry. A pileated hurls its voice out of the hemlocks. Doves whir.
Titmice chat. At the feeders, a male downy woodpecker dwarfs a red-breasted
nuthatch. Siskins in the treetops, a congested whisper.
Then, late to the party, blue jays awaken. Piercing shouts, everywhere at
once.
