May 31: Memorial Day

On our last day here on Monhegan we decided to hike out to Black Head through Cathedral Woods. The Cathedral Woods Trail is the one trail on the island where people are allowed to put up "fairy houses"--and then only using non-living items such as fallen twigs, bark, pine cones, and shells. I don't often hike that trail, so this is not aspect of Monhegan culture that I have much experience with beyond knowing that at one time they were outlawed altogether out here because some thoughtless people were pulling up living plants and destroying moss and lichen beds to create their fairy houses.

Most of the fairy houses we saw today were simple creations--some twigs stuck in the forest duff covered with roofs of bark and decorated with pebbles and pine cones. One fairy house had what looked like a pool. Some had rough furnishings. But the one that really touched us was the one most appropriate to today's holiday, a memorial of sorts: inside one sheltered arrangement of twigs lay a carefully placed, dead ovenbird. Outside someone had erected a little cross made of two twigs tied together with a strip of bark. Whatever happened to this little bird deep in the spruce woods, its passing was treated with reverence.

If an ovenbird
falls in the forest, fairies
honor its passing.

Photo by Brian Willson

May 30: Waxwing Love

We hit the Monhegan trails early this morning, drawn by anticipation of what might await us. This is my favorite time of day out here, as the sun rises over the Meadow to illuminate the corridor of blooming lilacs along the dirt road into the heart of the village. To the left is the harbor and Manana; to the right, past the old yellow house and above the Meadow, the lighthouse. Blackbirds flash their red epaulettes as they chatter and dive in the reeds of the marsh, and with any luck, small songbirds crawl through the greenery of lilacs and apple trees. Drenched in early light enriched by the vivid colors of flowers and the alluring warbles of birds, the morning lay before us full of promise.

Our first bird sighting, besides a mixed flock of grackles, starlings, and mallards eating bird seed in Tom Martin's yard, was just past the market, above a tangle of lobster traps, pallets, and colorful ropes. A pair of cedar waxwings, obviously a couple, sat perched side by side on a lilac branch. As we watched them, they passed a red berry from bill to bill several times. Then one flew down to grab a new berry, and they shared that one back and forth for a while. Waxwings are one of my favorite birds, in part because they're so beautiful--sleek brown with yellow bellies, a black mask, a crest, and red on the tips of their wing feathers like sealing wax (hence the name). But also because they're gentle, gregarious birds. You never see just one. Out here, even as some of them are obviously establishing pair bonds with these sweet, berry-passing rituals, flocks of a dozen to a hundred waxwings will sweep overhead with a rush of soft sounds and then land in a spruce tree all together like one big happy family. It's hard not to love them.

So no matter what the day ahead brings in the way of bird life, the joy we found at its start, with the two courting waxwings, will resonate throughout.

A berry shared, two,
gently passed from bill to bill
with such tenderness.

May 29: West Meets East

And I'm not talking about the Asian-style dinner we ate tonight at the Trailing Yew, either. My husband and I are out on Monhegan Island for the long weekend, birding with our friend Brian. As is usual during this holiday weekend during spring migration, we ran into many fellow birders while traipsing around the island today. Of course we ask what people have been seeing so we have an idea of what we should be looking for. One of the first "good bird" rumors we heard was that someone (a non-birder) had supposedly photographed a bird at Lobster Cove this morning that was later identified as a Western kingbird. No one we ran into had seen this bird, so we were skeptical. But also hopeful.

Western kingbirds are rare in the entire Eastern half of the US, with the exception of wintering populations in southern Florida. If you hit the plains of West Texas, you'll find one on every fence post--a pretty, grey flycatcher with a yellow wash on its belly. But here in New England--not so much. Hardly at all, in fact. In the East, we have our very own Eastern kingbirds, a black bird with a clean white belly that right now seems to be migrating through in numbers. Early today we observed maybe half a dozen of them darting about the Meadow, the island wetland / water supply. But no Western. And no one else who had seen one either.

Until late afternoon just before dinner, when a birder we knew came running up the hill waving her arms at us. The Western kingbird was in the Meadow right now! We jogged down the road until we reached the knot of birders all peering intently into the tall grass, where a couple of Eastern kingbirds were flitting about. Another birder we knew said the Western had been seen about 20 minutes ago--her husband kindly showed us some photos--but it seemed to be lying low in the weeds. We all waited about ten more minutes in a rather festive mood--as if waiting for a parade--when our patience was finally rewarded: the Western kingbird flew up to perch on a wire fence in perfect, full view of all of us. Even better, an Eastern kingbird then flew up to perch a couple of feet away. Western and Eastern, side by side (at least till the Western decided to chase off the Eastern). That's the kind of moment that makes birding on Monhegan so wonderful.

Western kingbird (left) and Eastern kingbird (right). Photo by Brian Willson.

Western meets Eastern
kingbird--this offshore island's
bird magic made real.

May 28: Moon Rise

A good night: Friday, work done for the week, four, maybe five days off ahead of me... Paul's reading at our local bookstore went well, attended by friends and family, and then dinner out with friends at a restaurant along the river. As we were walking up to the restaurant, a big flock of geese flew over honking musically, magically, on their way to the lake inland. Lots of laughter, good food, and then as we were driving home in high spirits, we caught a glimpse behind us of the almost-full moon rising huge and orange over Camden Harbor, right alongside the church steeple at the center of town. As if the whole evening were leading up to that moment of breath-taking, otherworldly beauty.

Dinner, drinks with friends.
A rising moon glows orange,
color of my joy.

May 27: Wicked Cute Owls

Early this morning I had plans to go over to a friend's house before work to see two baby great horned owls that live in the woods around her house. She's observed them since the beginning of May, has watched the mother owl bringing them food and keeping an eye on them. A few days ago, in fact, she watched one of the adults carry a rather large mammal up to the owl restaurant--she was hoping for her garden's sake that it was a woodchuck.

But just as I was about to leave, the phone rang. She hadn't seen them for two days, she said. So, no baby owls for me this morning.

Around 11:30 I got a call at work. The owls are back! Come over quick while they're right here!

So I drove to her house on a hill surrounded by beautiful old pines, with a view of the bay. Perfect owl habitat. She took me to the upstairs room from which we could easily see two fat owl fledglings perched side by side on a pine bough right outside the window. They were back to us, so all I could see was two fuzzy blobs that looked like big stuffed animals leaning on one another as if for support. A few trees away, deeper in the woods, we could see one of the adults, probably the mother. She had a sleeker body shape and her cat ears were more obvious. And her eyes were clearly focused on her two wobbly offspring. I have no doubt that she noticed our movement behind the window, too, though she didn't leave her perch.

A couple of years ago I had spent a few months watching three great horned owls on a web-cam as they hatched, matured, and fledged. When they flew the nest, they appeared similar to the two I saw today, live: ungainly, puffy things that looked like they would bumble through the trees. Yet my friend said when these two spread their wings, you can see their flight feathers are growing in rapidly. Day by day they'll be able to go farther and faster.

My friend told me that the owlets' nocturnal begging calls--a series of insistent shrieks--sound like someone being murdered in the night. The mother owl will watch over them and feed them throughout the summer, until they stop their heart-stopping screaming and learn to catch their own prey. Hard to think of something so cute and gawky maturing into the strong, silent killing machine that is an adult great horned owl. But with luck, they will.

Fuzzy baby owls,
by summer's end you'll both be
silent night hunters.

May 26: In the Sky

Driving through Rockport early this evening, I had one of those "wow" moments. As I headed south down Route One toward what appeared to be dense clouds, at one point I turned my head to see the leading edge of the fog mass. I almost went off the road as I took in what I was seeing and actually did exclaim aloud. I know fog is nothing unusual around here, but this particular formation was like nothing I'd seen before--a tangible, sharp thing cutting through the air like the smooth silvery wing of an airplane, or perhaps something softer but still solid and forceful, like a shark's fin. Carefully feeling its way, this curved rim of fog sent out wispy tendrils ahead of it as it progressed visibly northward. Strange and beautiful, mist made animate, the movements of this cloud beast seeming purposeful--a strange-looking UFO slowly invading the sunny blue skies before it (like those space ships on "Battlestar Galactica" that are actually living beings). (The mind makes some strange connections in the presence of such atmospheric funkiness).

Farther down the road, a broad-winged hawk flapped low over my car to land in a nearby tree. Even farther along, as I was stopped at a light, a turkey took off from the side of the road, barely clearing my windshield. With all this going on overhead, it's amazing I made it intact to my destination.

Sky released its hawks,
its cold, creeping edge of fog;
for fun, a turkey.

May 25: Purple

For today's post I'm primarily going to let these photos of what's blooming in my yard right now speak for themselves. Clearly I have a penchant for violet, though soon all these blossoms will be joined by frilly white peonies and the reds, oranges, and pinks of daylilies. With temperatures continuing in the 80s, these cool, soothing shades of purpley-blue against the rich green background of the lawn seem just right, just what the eye needs.

I've identified most closely with the color purple for as long as I can remember--I've always felt lucky that my birthstone is amethyst, a purple form of quartz, and that the flower associated with my birth month is the violet. So perhaps unconsciously I've loaded up my flower beds with this color. If you study chakras (the body's energy spots) and their associated colors, the violet-indigo-blue end of the spectrum covers the crown, third eye, and throat--head and neck, basically--and represent good things like oneness with the divine, peace, balance, intuition, and verbal expression. Without getting too New Age-y, I like to think that we are drawn to particular colors at certain times because we need something from them. Today I feel a calming connection to the colors of my flowers, as well as the desire to verbally express that uplifting connection with a haiku.

Drawn to these purple
flowers, my hot head is soothed,
cool balance returned.

May 24: Great-crested Flycatcher

As the cardinal has quieted down in my neighborhood, his repetitive whistles have been replaced by the brash calls of another avian big mouth: the great-crested flycatcher. I heard his "breep, breep" this morning when I first awoke. All day long I could hear his urgent, sputtering calls outside my office window. And I hear him now as I type on my back porch, the sound carrying over the racket of several cawing crows. "Breep, breep..." Like someone whistling for a dog, only buzzier.

He's so insistent and just plain loud that I'm surprised no one else ever really notices him. Several times during the day I heard that noise from my desk and had to laugh, he sounded so demanding, perhaps a little desperate. That's what hormones will do to a guy.

This striking bird is deserving of some attention. He's not a lipstick red cardinal, of course. But he's no skulking sparrow, being noticeably bigger than his fly-catching cousin, the phoebe, and sporting a lemon yellow breast, a regal crest, and rusty red on his wing feathers and tail. A bird worth looking for with the binoculars as he sings from a high perch, master of his domain. The great-crested flycatcher usually lives near water--better for flies there--so we're lucky to share his habitat here along the Megunticook River, even if he can be a bit raucous as a neighbor.

An interesting side note: the great-crested flycatcher has a habit of weaving snake skins into its nest. No one is really sure why it does that. I like to think that it's an aesthetic choice. A bird as vocal as this one just seems like the type who'd want to sport some snake skin.

Noisy flycatcher
announcing your place in things--
lord of the tree tops.

May 23: Buttercups

Driving back from a warm and bird-filled outing on Beech Hill this morning, I passed a set of lush, velvety green farm fields. In what must have been a wet pocket in the corner of one, thousands of buttercups clustered together to form a glowing yellow bowl of flowers in all that green. The next field contained a similar buttercup hollow. The effect was stunning and surprising, for both the numbers of flowers all massed together as for their cumulative brightness. The little yellow faces of those many blossoms dazzled the surrounding landscape.

As kids we held buttercups under each other chins to see if the yellow would reflect, meaning we liked butter. Those buttercups holding themselves up to the chin of the sky, where the yellow sun shines back--what does that mean?  Does the cosmos like butter too? And why shouldn't it? What scene is more bucolic than a lush pasture in which soft-eyed, butter-producing (grass fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free) cows graze placidly amid the yellow lights of buttercups under a perfect blue sky?

What's up, buttercups?
Galaxy of yellow suns
swirls in a green sky.

May 22: Grosbeak Opera

The rich, warbling song of the rose-breasted grosbeak is often described as sounding like a robin who took singing lessons. So today when I was standing in the middle of an old farm field swaying with timothy, surrounded by the music of four rose-breasted grosbeaks, I felt as if I were being given a private performance by the Three Tenors. My avian serenade was highlighted by the sighting of one of these beautiful birds. I'm not sure how all those hormone-addled male birds tolerated being so close to one another, but there must have been an invisible territory system in play that kept them all happily singing rather than chasing one another away.

The combination of the heady birdsong, ripe fields, lupines in bloom, and the faint backdrop of cricket music gave this lovely day a sensual summery feeling. Given that summer is officially a full month away, I hope this means we're going to have many more of such moments ahead of us to savor.

Photo by Heather Gerquest (not the bird I saw today)

Thrilling decadence--
grosbeak serenade surrounds
the flowering fields.

May 21: Morning Sounds

I love waking up for a few minutes around dawn to hear the birds welcoming the day--the jubilant dawn chorus--before I fall back asleep. Last night was so warm I left the bedroom window cracked, hoping to be awakened this morning by birdsong. When I did wake up for a brief period in the day's wee hours, however, no wave of melodious warblers was moving through our back yard. I didn't even hear robins, whose rollicking songs open and close each day--just some chickadees and a phoebe, their songs punctuating the constant rush of the river in the background.

My husband, who usually wakes up at least an hour before I do, was away last night. So after I fell back asleep, there were not even the noises of his puttering around the house getting ready for work to rouse me again. I slept till the alarm went off. It was unusually restful, but when I did finally get out of bed, I felt something had been missing.

No dawn chorus, nor
your usual morning sounds--
only the river.