17 September 2022 (dry)

dry wind . . .

a kingfisher hovers

over pond mud

15 September 2022 (rattling)

rattling around in my head kingfisher

26 March 2022 (river)

drowning out

the kingfisher’s rattle

whitewater

25 August 2020 (kingfisher)

low water

the rattle upriver

of a kingfisher

October 23: On the Rail Trail

kingfisher overhead

gold underfoot coin of the realm

each step an homage

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

August 3: Drought

river so low now

we barely hear water

just a kingfisher

Posted with Blogsy

December 16: Kingfisher

Unfrozen quarry,

snowfall--lone kingfisher rattles,

plumbs the black depths.

Posted with Blogsy

April 29: Kingfisher

Didn't get outside all day until I left the office well after 6:00 pm, but was rewarded for a long day's work by a kingfisher rattling overhead. First one of the spring for me here, though I've seen some further south in Maine. He seemed to be traveling downriver. When I told my husband, he wondered aloud if the river had been stocked with fish this spring. I think he was also wondering silently if he could get outside and go fishing while there was still daylight.

Kingfisher sounds annoyed
to find the river so low.
Spring hopes realign.

August 1: First day of August

A new month begins, summer creeps ever onward. After a rainy morning, I felt fortunate to stand in the sun this afternoon on a creaky old dock on a pond in Morrill, surrounded by purple pickerelweed flowers waving above the water's surface and darting dragonflies. We could see little fish swimming in the shallow water around the dock. A kingfisher rattled in the distance. And after we hiked through the pines back up the trail, we finally heard a loon call--not a cry of alarm, but that simple call of a loon declaring its presence on the small, bright pond.

Now August begins.
From the lily-choked pond, loon
calls forth the new month.

September 19: Merlin

In the King Arthur stories, Merlin the magician is the one who makes things happen. He sets the story in motion. In Weskeag Marsh, the merlin also sets things in motion--namely other birds, harassing them and generally creating chaos wherever it flies. It was quiet when I arrived at the marsh this morning around high tide, with just a handful of sandpipers shifting in the pannes and a line-up of snowy egrets in the distance. But friends I met there had earlier watched a peregrine falcon carry off a yellowlegs--a rather large sandpiper--and had also seen a merlin, a smaller falcon, zip through.

So when I set out onto the flooded, mucky path winding through the marsh grass between the pannes and canals, I kept an eye out. Fairly quickly I spotted the peregrine on a big dead tree that seems to be the favorite perch of peregrines, perhaps resting after digesting its big meal. Downriver a kingfisher perched on the right side of a duck blind, an array of snowy egrets in the water nearby. As I focused on my footing, trying to get further out into the marsh in hopes of seeing more birds, I heard the kingfisher's rattling call. Looking up, I noticed that the bird perched on the right side of the duck blind was now a small brown falcon. The kingfisher was now perched on the left side of the blind. The merlin must have decided it wanted that side and chased off the kingfisher, which held its ground enough to at least remain on the blind. They stayed in that detente arrangement for several minutes as I made my way further into the marsh.

Later I happened to notice that the kingfisher had left the blind for a fence post. A few posts away sat the merlin. I wondered if it had moved over there just to bug the kingfisher. Merlins are like that. For a bird of prey, it's small, about the size of a kingfisher, actually, but fierce beyond its size. A merlin will make a pass at just about anything--a gull, an eagle, a peregrine. It knows no fear, and its speed and size make it a difficult target for retaliation. At one point the peregrine left the snag and gave chase to something in the marsh, and the merlin somehow got involved. It was difficult to say which bird was chasing which, but the peregrine came up with nothing and the merlin went back to a fence post.

It remained there until I had left the marsh. Before I got in my car, I scanned one more time. And there was the merlin, darting over the marsh. A couple of crows noticed, as well, and loudly took up chase. The birds disappeared into the pines bordering the marsh. When they emerged, it looked like the merlin had turned the tables and was chasing the crows. They went around and around in the trees until the feisty merlin flew off to harass something else.

Merlin chasing crows
never doubts himself. For him
size doesn't matter.

Interested in learning a little more about merlins? Check out this recent post on merlins (with beautiful accompanying photos) by my birder friend Bryan Pfeiffer, who is currently out on Monhegan.

August 31: Rattle and Hum

Last day of August. The evening air throbs with the music of crickets and other insects. Slowly the sun sinks behind the trees, but heat lingers. The air is very still as if it, like me, is too hot for movement. As I refill the bird feeders (the birds, at least, were active today, draining the thistle sock of every last little seed), a kingfisher rattles not far off, above the river. The river flows through a shaded tunnel of trees, and I imagine how deliriously wonderful it must feel for the bird to dive into that cool water.

Joy is everywhere:
in kingfisher's noisy dive,
in twilight's soft hum.