30 September 2023 (promises)

promises to keep

a trailside flicker feather

points south

5 October 2022 (migrating)

migrating flickers . . .

the burning bush

fully engaged

1 October 2022 (first frost)

first frost

a flicker perches

on a propane tank

11 May 2022 (unfurling ferns)

unfurling ferns . . .

a pair of flicker feathers

flags the trail

18 June 2019 (flickers)

laughter

down by the river

a pair of flickers

September 28: NE winds up to 25 MPH

atop Lighthouse Hill

windblown thoughts scatter

flickers across the meadow

Posted with Blogsy

May 1: May Day

May Day, or Beltane--the pagan holiday celebrating the fertility of the verdant earth. This morning a Red-bellied Woodpecker was chirring repeatedly in the yard while I ate breakfast. Now a flicker's staccato whinny, cardinal's sputtering, and always the titmouse's incessant, loud whistles. The lawn greens in this vernal sunlight, bulbs bloom, buds swell. So much going on out there right now, the "season for loving."

Woodpecker calling
with uplifting urgency:
May Day! I need you!

July 3: Knee high by the 4th of July

"Knee high by the 4th of July" refers to the height one's corn should be by now, if I'm remembering right. For me, it referred to the height of the grass in my backyard before I finally mowed it this evening. Each summer I seem to go longer before mowing, enjoying the various phases of flowers--first the little violets and forget-me-nots, later the daisies and hawkweed. At this point, the flowers had been subsumed by ferns and tall, feathery grasses, and I decided I wanted a cleaner look. Also, I wanted to be able to sit in my backyard without succumbing to an asthma attack from breathing all that grass-dust.

It felt a bit like mowing a hay field, except no bird's nests or baby rabbits were harmed in the process--though I half expected some creature to startle up in front of the mower. I did mow a blue jay feather, which felt wrong somehow, but disturbed nothing else larger than a moth. Still, the neighborhood flicker is calling over and over now, as if in alarm.

Good old sweaty work--
lawn so high it's like haying.
I should have a scythe.

September 21: Flocks of Flickers

On this eve of the Autumnal Equinox, fall is making its arrival felt. For the first time I noticed a few patches of red amid the green carpeting the Mount Megunticook ridge. Mornings are chilly. And migrating flickers are everywhere. I think I saw or heard one every time I went out the office door. I heard them while enjoying lunch on a friend's porch in the lovely late summer sun in Rockport. I saw their white-patched rumps bobbing into the bushes here and there as I ran errands and watched one eating berries from a bush at one stop. And to top it off this flicker-full day, a friend sent me a beautiful photo he'd recently taken of a flicker:

Photo by Karl Gerstenberger: kegerstenberger.zenfolio.com

Derek Lovitch, a bird biologist based in Freeport, keeps track of migrating birds passing over Sandy Point, on Cousins Island in Yarmouth. He actually counts everything he sees each morning he's there. His previous high count of flickers on a single morning during fall migration was 105. This morning's total, during what Derek refers to as an "EPIC, Record-shattering Sandy Point Morning Flight": 1,092! Flickers made up the highest percentage of all the birds that flew over, with 334 cedar waxwings bringing up a distant second. So flickers are on the move en masse, and the falcons are right behind them... Can you feel that energy in the air?

Last day of summer.
Flocks of flickers flee the fall,
falcons on their tails.

September 3: Four Woodpeckers

This morning when I got out of bed I looked out the back window to see why the blue jays were making such a ruckus. On the lawn were dispersed three robins, a squirrel, and a flicker. The flicker was almost underneath the window, and my appearance there caused him to look up. Flickers often "graze" on lawns for ants and other lawn-loving grubs, but they aren't usually right under my window. So I got a good, albeit brief, look at his smooth brown belly covered with black spots, the black band across his breast, and the little black "mustache" pattern on his face that told me he was a male. Then he flew off into the trees, flashing his characteristic white rump. The robins and squirrel hung out for a while longer, and a downy woodpecker whinnied from the trees over our shed.

Woodpeckers have been especially verbal today. When I got to work, a pileated woodpecker was calling loudly and repeatedly from somewhere nearby. Yesterday afternoon he made so much noise that I finally went outside and spotted him preening in a birch tree above my co-worker's truck. The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America describes the sound as "a loud wuck note or series of notes, given all year." That hardly conveys the crazy cackle that resonates throughout the neighborhood when a pileated woodpecker feels like making some noise. In addition to his wuck-ing, I also heard another flicker and a hairy woodpecker--a total of four woodpecker species in one day without even going outside. I may be a lazy birder during my work week, but I can't complain about the birds I do manage to see or hear.

Posing on my lawn,
flicker shows his true colors.
Then--white rump flashing.

December 23: Flicker Feather

I confess that when I'm walking around in the great outdoors, if I find a cool feather I will sometimes pocket it. Technically this is illegal. According to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act: "Unless and except as permitted by regulations, …it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means, or in any manner…to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, …possess, offer for sale, sell, …purchase, import…any migratory bird, any part, nest, or eggs of any such bird…"


That said, however, I've got a small feather from a northern flicker sitting in a little vase on my desk. It's a miniature work of art--about five inches long, dark brown vanes with white edging on the wider side, and a bright yellow shaft with a white quill. Sharpened, it might make a good pen for a gnome. The underside has a yellow sheen. Here in the east, our flickers are of the yellow-shafted subspecies. When a flicker flaps past, that yellow underside is obvious. Out west, you see the red-shafted subspecies. Same basic bird, but the underwing shines pinkish-red when it dips past. They both have the characteristic white rump spots--usually the diagnostic marking that gets noticed as the bird dives into tree cover. 


Maybe because grey tones seem dominant right now, today I've been especially noticing my feather. The hints of spots on its edges are like parts of a Rorschach ink blot test. What do they make me think of? The sharp piercing cry of the flicker as it calls from the trees outside my window in spring... the squadrons of migrating flickers I see on Monhegan each fall... the subtle beauty of this woodpecker as it pecks for ants on my mother's lawn... And the yellow shaft is a really deep gold, almost like an egg yolk or a summer sun. A little bit of brightness next to my books and file folders.


In the spring I'll probably release it to the wind, atone for my law-breaking. But for now, my eyes need it here. 


Small flicker feather
picked up in last summer's woods,
shaft a slice of sun.