Date: 3/20/26 6:46 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 20 March 2026: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
6:31 a.m.—twenty-one minutes before sunrise, four hours and fifteen minutes
before the vernal equinox, and still it feels like December. Twenty-four
degrees. Wind south-southwest at two miles an hour, gusting to four. Damp.
Damp. Damp. The sky marbled in the east, pale rose, blue-gray; a faint
blush to the west; elsewhere, clear, nearly colorless.
Road puddles frozen. Streams mostly open. Here and there, water slips under
clear ice; dark bubbles flattened against its glassy underside, like a lava
lamp with ambition.
All pretense of clouds gone with the sun. Incandescent yellow light, two
F-stops overexposed, seeps through open woodlands, oozes down hardwood
trunks, turns hemlock, pine, spruce a startled, radiant green. A soft haze
rides with the light, blurring the New Hampshire skyline. Rhododendron
leaves loosen—appear greener, denser, a heart-shaped heart in the meadow. I
hear, barely, juncos inside, silhouettes in the bush's dark interior.
6:33 a.m. Barred owl (maybe George) enlivens the hemlocks, a shadow within
shadows. Calls four times. I stop. He stops ... and the day continues.
6:36 a.m. Two crows head west, the village criers.
6:45 a.m. Four mallards under a bird feeder, grazing on the endowment
goldfinches left behind. They freak out when they see me and arrow due east
toward the open water.
Freed (for the moment) of the bodily grind of migration, a mob scene of
robins dominates sunrise. In the trees. On the hard ground. Singing.
Calling. Idling in the sun, breasts on fire. Robins spread from one valley
to the next, from southern Appalachia to the foothills of the Green
Mountains ... and far beyond. Rumors of changes to follow, expectant birds
on the threshold of a new season.
*The background ensemble:* brown creeper in the pines, high, squeaky voice
like sneakers skidding on the hardwood. Common grackle. Common starling.
Cedar waxwing, scarcely a whisper. Chickadees being chickadees, singing and
chasing; flock coherence disintegrates. Song sparrow, barely enunciating.
American goldfinch and pine siskin. Both species of nuthatches, red- and
white-breasted. Mourning doves sit tight, face the sun. Blue jays, loud and
garrulous (robins' rival for the airwaves). Flyover red crossbills, half a
dozen (unquestionably a highlight).
