May 20: Off island

The hour-long ferry ride home from Monhegan, especially on a day of dazzling sunlight and calm seas, offers an almost dream-like transition from the isolated island--for me, a repository of years of wonderful memories and experiences with dear friends and thousands of birds--and the reality of my ordinary life. I'm tired, sunburned, lulled by the rhythm of the boat through the waves. I often nap. The laughing gulls raucous calls as we approach Port Clyde harbor seem somehow an appropriate awakening. And then I'm in my car, Red Sox game on the radio, heading up the St. George peninsula, already thinking ahead to a mundane errand I need to run on the way back home.

All that deep water
between here and there. It seems
days past, not mere hours.

View of Fish Beach, Monhegan, as the ferry leaves harbor

May 19: Monhegan sapsucker

A Monhegan story: a birder friend of mine who lives in New York City (when he's not on Monhegan) was at a bus stop years ago when he noticed a yellow-bellied sapsucker on a nearby tree. Being a gregarious man, he turned to the woman next to him and excitedly announced, "Sapsucker!" "Pervert!" she exclaimed, moving as far away from him as she could get.

When I was in second grade, a boy in my class told our teacher that he was a bird-watcher. She asked him what birds he'd seen, and he said he'd recently seen a yellow-bellied sapsucker. I remember this because I didn't think such a bird could exist. It sounded so improbable and exotic. Little did I know that almost 40 years later they would be an ordinary part of my life, that others would be looking at me strangely when I casually mentioned seeing a sapsucker.

Sapsuckers are one of our few migrant woodpeckers (along with flickers), and some days on Monhegan it can seem like there's one clinging to every tree. Those lines of holes you see fretting the apple trunks--those were made by generations of sapsuckers. Today, however, I only saw one, this female below, who landed just a few yards in front of the group I was birding with and then posed obligingly for photographs, close enough for even a lousy pocket-sized point-and-shoot like mine.

Even in my slightly blurry photo you can see she lacks the red throat of a male. You can also see the faint yellow wash on her belly, from which her species gets its name. What you can't see is the buffy, almost gold, color that ran alongside her black throat. And what you can barely see, but which I was struck by most, was the delicate barring on her breast contrasting with the bolder spots on her back. A beautiful, intricately patterned bird. Her long pause before us felt like the visitation of some wonderful alien being (with an appropriately strange name). 

Little sapsucker

pecking out her secret code,

tapping into spring.

May 18: Monhegan weekend, first night

The first of two nights on Monhegan Island for the weekend. I went to bed sated by a day of perfect weather, dozens of birds flitting through the trees, hours of walking on trails winding past blossom-laden apple trees and lilacs, the great company of friends old and new, and a good supper. The night was chilly but I left my windows open so I could hear the sound of the waves crashing and the foghorn over on Manana. Also, so that in the morning I'd awaken at first light to bird song. I crawled into my sleeping bag happy and, unusual for me, fell asleep right away.

My cabin is a separate building from the one that contains the bathroom, so in the middle of the night I was forced to traipse across the dewy lawn. When I looked up, however, I was glad that I'd had to go outside. The night sky was clear and full of stars, unimpeded by light pollution so far offshore. In fact, it was a challenge to make my way 20 yards across the lawn. So late at night, the stars looked out of place, and I had to re-orient myself with the Big Dipper, which was tipped up in a different direction than when I saw it much earlier in the evening. My first thought was how beautiful and rare it is these days to see the sky like that. My second thought was that this clear sky means birds are migrating, and some of them will find the island at dawn so that I can hopefully find them.

Late night, glasses off--
swarms of stars blur overhead,
guiding birds northward.

May 17: Ravens

Today is our wedding anniversary, and as is our tradition, my husband and I met after work at the outdoor chapel where we got married. Nine years ago, it was also a sunny day, a bit chillier--I wore long underwear under my dress--with the leaves just unfurling and the earliest flowers blooming. My husband brought me roses, and in the afternoon light his eyes shone with that unreal color blue that first drew me to him all those years ago.
 
The theme of our wedding was ravens--specifically, Odin's two birds named Thought and Memory. Our wedding rings had engraved ravens on them. It's a long story, but now we have matching black ceramic wedding rings, still adhering to the raven theme.
 
Which is why it seemed especially symbolic when, back home, I heard the croak of a raven flying overhead, headed for some corvid fracas on Mount Battie. Later, my husband and I watched together as the pair soared back over the house.
 
They're not here for us,
but we thrill to see ravens--
Thought and Memory.

May 16: Weather report

Driving early this morning on my way to lead a bird walk, I was listening closely to the weather report on public radio. Showers stopping on the coast, the weatherman said (and I paraphrase), with maybe even some brightening this afternoon. However, he went on, this was not necessarily a good thing, as that might produce atmospheric disturbances leading to thunderstorms.

The rain did stop, and at one point this afternoon, a patch of sky shone briefly. We were not disturbed by thunderstorms. However, as I drove home early this evening from a meeting, a tiny scattering of hailstones bounced around my car for a moment. And then they were gone.

After days of rain,
would a little sun really
cause a disturbance?

May 15: Guide to capturing a quince blossom

I recently picked up a copy of Red Pine's translation of Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom, by Sung Po-jen, first published in 1238. Not a typo--this was written in China almost 800 years ago. The concept: 100 paintings of plum blossoms in varying stages, from Covered Buds to Forming Fruit. Each painting is accompanied by a poem that refers to the plum blossom's physical appearance, as well as many layers of associated cultural and political symbolism. Really, some quite lovely political critiques.
 
Sung Po-jen was clearly obsessed with revealing the essence of his subject, and he was so successful that later painters didn't bother to study the real thing anymore--they just memorized his book and its 100 stages.
 
Reading this book has made me look at my flowering quince's ruffled, peach-colored blossoms with new eyes.

Radiant blossoms--
plum or quince inspire poets
of any era.
 

May 14: On alert

I heard loud cawing and looked out the window to see a swirl of crows in the pine and the pair of Canada geese standing in their usual spot, looking very much on guard. Just as I had my hand on the door to go out and try to get a better look at what all the fuss was about, my director yelled for me from his office. Thinking it was work-related, I turned back and went in to talk to him. "There are five upset crows out there!" he said. Back to the door I went, chuckling to myself at how alert we can be to what's going on outside even as we focus on our work.
 
My presence on the porch flushed the crows to a more distant tree, and I never did see why they were so agitated. From their posture and location, I can only assume it was something on the ground--a stalking cat, perhaps, or maybe even the raccoon we've seen bumbling through the riverside alders.
 
Alarm calls of crows
make even me pause, look out
on sudden alert.

May 13: Wildflowers

Because I only carry a pocket-sized point-and-shoot camera, when I'm hiking around I don't take many photographs of birds. Even with a 16x digital zoom, it doesn't have the capacity for a good bird shot. Most of the ones I try are of the "that dark blob there is the bird!" variety. But even when I'm birding, I'm not always looking up in the branches or in the sky. This time of year, especially, I try to also notice what flowers have returned along with our spring birds. Some I've known since childhood, their familiar presence on the forest floor linking me in memory to years of tromping around these local woods: Canada mayflower, trilliums red, white, and painted, hepatica, trailing arbutus, bloodroot, moccasin flower (lady's slipper), bellwort or wild oats, trout lily, rhodora, violets, clintonia... Not all of these are blooming yet, but I'm happy to find even the bright new leaves themselves poking up through the forest duff, knowing flowers will soon follow.

I've realized that a photo is a great tool for recording a plant species I'm not familiar with, to look up later in my wildflower guide. Yesterday, I learned that I'd come across wild ginseng and golden Alexander. Today, wood anemone. Part of my wanting to know and remember the names of all these flowers is the simple desire for knowledge. Knowledge equals power, after all. But there's more to it than that: to know what lives in a place is essential to truly coming to know that place. It's like living in a neighborhood. If you don't know your neighbors, you'll never feel a real attachment to the place, no matter how long you live there. This is my home. I know my neighbors; I know the woman who owns the corner grocery. But when I'm in the nearby woods, I also feel at home there. Here are the little green flags of Canada mayflower among the hemlocks; here is the rhodora in that same wet patch of the field; and here's the hummingbird come to feed.

The hummingbird too

knows wildflowers, rejoices

in their re-blooming.

Wild Ginseng

Golden Alexander

Rhodora

Wood Anemone

May 12: Sap sippers

I visited the Ducktrap River Preserve early and spent several hours exploring and watching/listening for birds. The hemlock-shaded uplands resonated with bird song: Blackburnian, black-throated blue, and black-throated green warblers, ovenbirds, pine siskins, kinglets, and blue-headed vireos made their presence known, while down the bluff, the river rushed ever on. For a long time I sat in a patch of sun on an old fallen log and just let the music of it all tumble through the warm air around me.

The sunshine seemed to have awakened quite a few butterflies, as well, of few of which I could even recognize: red admiral, comma, and question mark. I was particularly interested to note several butterflies, mostly question marks, fluttering around a stand of birch trees. Looking closely, I could see where a yellow-bellied sapsucker--a local species of woodpecker--had drilled a few small "wells" in the trunks. The butterflies were gathering on these wells, sipping birch sap. At one, a butterfly seemed to be vying with a corps of largish red and black ants for the sap. These butterflies wintered over and now renew their energy with this sap thanks to the sapsucker. The sapsucker's only thought, of course, was for itself, but it also benefited the insects without even realizing. Ah, the workings of Nature...

Sipping spring birch sap,
ethereal butterflies--
even they must eat.

Question Mark

May 11: Brownies

Today's subject matter isn't natural or particularly seasonal, but when Kendall Merriam, Rockland's former Poet Laureate, arrived at the Land Trust office this afternoon with a pan full of rich, amazing, homemade brownies--"Katherine Hepburn's brownies"--which he served up with his grandmother's antique metal spatula, it was certainly a moment of light that helped energize us through to the end of a long work week. Kendall scrawled out the recipe for us in long-hand on a yellow notepad, and it looked like he was writing us a poem. Which, in fact, he was.

At work, grey Friday.
A plate of homemade brownies--
just what we needed.

May 10: But

All this jabbering
about bird song and flowers,
but what about love?