May 31: Visitor

When a co-worker called me over to the window, "Quick!" I thought I was going to catch sight of some unusual bird. Instead I was surprised to see a large doe standing right outside our office. She seemed to catch sight of our movement inside and flicked away, but we were able to track her as she ran past a row of office windows, and later, wandered around the other side of the building. We were all struck by her long graceful neck and the speed with which she could make her large body disappear so quickly and utterly.
 
We hoped to see you
leap over the fence. Instead
you vanished in trees.
 

May 30: Poetry Dinner

My poet friend Elizabeth Tibbetts (author of In the Well) and I recently resolved to meet one night a month and "be poets" together, making space and time to talk about poetry and write or share poems. Tonight was our first session, and we decided to really do it up by meeting at The Lost Kitchen, Belfast's coolest new restaurant. Over oysters, then halibut and mussels, we talked and talked, and then wrote some poems. I wrote a tanka (like a haiku, but with two extra 7-syllable lines added at the end) and a haiku; she wrote a short free verse poem which I like very much. So it seemed appropriate to share the fruits of our poetry dinner here.

My tanka:
Outside the restaurant
chimney swifts flicker. Inside,
lit candle, cocktail,
lustrous grey and gold oysters.
Across the table, dear friend.

My haiku:
Everything's local--
rhubarb and vodka cocktail,
mussels, oysters, us.

Elizabeth's poem:
The evening light slides
down like this river
oyster. Forget the innuendo
and remember the salt,
salt of blood and sea.
The lilacs are going by,
next the honeysuckle.
Tip the glass high, let
the last pale sip in.
Remember. Try it now.
Remember what you wanted
most, what drew you
like the chimney swift
to the flue.

May 29: Peace sign

Photograph (and peace sign) by Clifford Pendleton

It was all over Facebook among friends here in Camden--or those from Camden--on Memorial Day. Cliff Pendleton had somehow managed to create a perfect peace sign by burning rubber right in the center of town the night before. The street serving as the canvas to this masterpiece of public car art is Main Street (a.k.a. Route One), at the intersection of three other major streets, the literal crossroads of town. The precision driving required to create such a thing boggles the mind a bit. 

As Cliff wrote when he posted this: "Fuel to town ten bucks, court summons [by the Marine Patrol, no less] hundred thirty nine, miles of smiles PRICELESS!!" This is civil disobedience at its best, in my opinion. I especially enjoyed seeing a photograph posted later of the town's Memorial Day parade passing over the peace sign. What better way to honor our fallen dead than to wish for peace so that no more fall in combat?

Tire tread mark peace sign--
sometimes a small disruption
can make a big point.

May 28: Treefrog

We returned home from Monhegan this afternoon to be taunted by our backyard birds. After looking for three days for a black-and-white warbler out on the island, the first bird we heard upon pulling into our driveway was a black-and-white warbler, singing loudly right there. Then, as I was checking out how the flowers had progressed since we left on Saturday (lilacs in bloom! columbine in bloom! rhodos starting to bloom!), I was strafed by a hummingbird. We saw zero hummingbirds on Monhegan, despite the island being loaded with both flowers and nectar feeders--so this was a nice welcome home.

One odd thing, however, was hearing the trill of a gray treefrog coming from somewhere up the street. There are no wetlands in our neighborhood, other than the river on the downhill side of the house. This solo frog was calling plaintively in the vicinity of our neighbor's garden. I've been hearing him off and on for the past couple of weeks, but was surprised he was still around in what seems to be a completely random spot and still making noise. Guess he'll keep at it till he gets lucky.

Good luck, little frog--
you're not near water or mates,
but your song's pretty.

May 27: Empids

Birds of the flycatcher genus Empidonax all look alike for the most part. So when you see one, unless it's singing, you generally can't tell which of several species it might be. We have to let a lot of Empids go unidentified, just tiny grey-green flycatchers with wing bars and some kind of eye ring.

My husband and I got lucky today, however. We actually heard four of the five Empids that might be found out on Monnhegan Island, and as a bonus, got good looks at several. Here's what we saw/heard:

Least Flycatcher: says "Che-beck"
Alder Flycatcher: says "Free-beer!"
Willow Flycatcher: says "Fitz-bew"
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher: says "Pe-wee!" but not like a pewee says it. It also has a distinct yellow wash on its belly, unlike the others.
(The fifth Empid is the Acadian Flycatcher, which is the rarest in these parts; I've only had one out here once.)

So, despite a paucity of warblers, we enjoyed our flycatcher day (we also heard/saw a Great Crested Flycatcher, kingbirds, and pewees). It involved a lot of standing quietly near lush, thickety wet areas with our ears and eyes on high alert, which also enabled us to spot several other birds as they passed by--as well as swarms of little flies in the columns of light filtering through the trees, the birds' reason for being there. A welcome change of pace.

Flycatcher puzzle
keeps us occupied for hours,
intent but content.

Flycatcher Quest on Trail #6

May 26: Monhegan again!

I can't get out here enough! Fortunately this weekend my husband was able to join me on my favorite island. We left in pea soup fog, and now I'm enjoying a cocktail in full sun on the deck of the Monhegan House while a flock of siskins chirps overhead, the foghorn whistle sounds, somewhere far off a bell buoy clangs, and gulls cry down at the harbor's edge. The sun is slowly lowering itself over the curved green back of Manana, the island across the harbor, as I'm slowly settling into the island rhythm for the weekend.

Besides the visual attractions of the island and the brightly colored migrants that pass through it, and the constant sounds of the waves and singing birds, my high moment today had to do with the sense of smell. While listening and looking for a mourning warbler, a skulking, boreal bird with a song often used, for some reason, in TV ads, I found myself suddenly engulfed in the perfume of a lilac grove. The ancient, twisted lilacs are laden with redolent purple blossoms right now, with bright warblers moving among them. For an instant, part of me was on the island I love, on a quest for a sought-after bird. And part of me was back at my grandmother's house, a child again, breathing in that heady fragrance as if it were oxygen. They do say smell is the sense most closely linked to memory.

As a child, too, I
gloried in lilacs, and birds,
at the ocean's edge.

May 25: What's with you?

Everyone has their own memory devices to identify bird songs. But what works for one birder might not work at all for another, especially if that other is an older birder who's lost the upper register of his or her hearing and can't hear all the notes of the song. Fortunately, that's not me... yet. I may need reading glasses, but my hearing is still excellent and I do most of my spring birding by ear.

But here's what I'm talking about. Most birders learn the song of the white-throated sparrow as, "Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody." Or, an alternative: "O Canada, Canada Canada." Those long, clear, resonant notes are distinctive in the Maine woods, recognized by most as a sound of summer even if they don't know what the bird looks like or even its name. I, however, was taught as a child by my grandmother that the sparrow is singing, "We're going to have rain"--each word a long, drawn-out whistled note. It was years before I really heard the vibrato that makes those final notes into triplets of sound (like "Peabody," "Canada"), but by then it was too late. The "rain prediction song" was the association irrevocably stuck in my head. (And here in Maine, it's going to rain almost always--so that prediction is usually accurate.)

In many bird books, the song of the chestnut-sided warbler is described as "Pleased, pleased, pleased to meet you!" But I hear, "Hey, hey, hey, what's with you?" As I was walking to my car this afternoon to run an errand, a chestnut-sided warbler sang close by, very loudly. "What's with you?!" he asked, and I found myself musing as I drove to the bank if that was more than a mnemonic. Maybe the world was posing me an existential question through that bird. What is with me? Why am I so tired this week? Is it this blanket of fog? Or something deeper, darker?

Then I laughed.

What's with me? Thinking
the world is all about me.
Birds sing for themselves.

May 24: Peaceful sparrow

Occasionally a song sparrow visits my office bird feeder. I looked up from my desk this afternoon to see one just standing there for several minutes. He'd pick up a seed now and then, but eating didn't seem to be the focus. For long seconds he would look through the window as if checking out the office. Then he'd spend several more moments looking toward a stand of birches. He didn't grab a seed and run like the titmice and chickadees do, or twitter and fidget like the wary goldfinches. The sun was shining on his back, and I imagined that sitting in a feeder full of seed on a warm day with no predators visible must be a bird's idea of heaven.

All the sparrow needs:
seeds, sunshine, safe nest, a mate.
And what else is there?

May 23: Young deer

The highlight of a bird walk I led this morning on Ragged Mountain wasn't a bird, although there were several cool birds--singing wood thrush, singing rose-breasted grosbeak, singing towhee, woodcocks flushed from a nest, a bluebird in a nest cavity, several warblers... As we walked up the woods road, a deer stepped out in front of us and looked our way. I thought at first it was a big doe, warm brown in her new summer coat. But looking through my binoculars, I could see it had little velvety nubs of horns: a young buck. His big ears swiveled as he tried to figure out what we were. We must have been downwind, because he began to slowly walk toward us, seemingly curious. We held still and watched, but not silently. He flicked his white tail but didn't bolt. Eventually he must have decided we were beneath his notice, and he melted into the woods. We never heard a sound, even as we walked past where he had entered the shelter of green leaves.
 
More aware than we
of all those birds in the leaves--
young deer, still fearless.

May 22: Overhead

This morning from my office I could hear the piercing, high-pitched call of a broad-winged hawk. Often I'm faked out by blue jay mimics, so I went outside to see which this was, hawk or jay. Overhead the small hawk circled above the office several times, whistling insistently. It felt as if he were calling us outside to admire him as surveyed his domain: Pay attention, subjects! The light illuminated his barred breast and banded tail. I could see where the same flight feather in each wing had fallen out and left a gap, like missing teeth--clearly, he's molting. He called over and over, eventually soaring over the river toward Mount Battie. I think they nest on the mountain each summer.

Later at my desk I heard a loon calling as it flew upriver. Such a strange and wonderful sound to punctuate my work day. And so unlike the beeping of trucks backing up at the warehouse across the street or the neighbor's dog barking incessantly.

River calls them in.
We're simple witnesses here
to all that wild noise.

May 21: Sweeping away the cobwebs of winter

On this glorious sunny day I opened my office windows wide. The sound of yellow and chestnut-sided warblers singing in the nearby alder patch, a great-crested flycatcher "breeping" down by the river, and a nearby group of chipping sparrows kept my ears well entertained while I worked away on the computer. The boys of spring are back.

Late morning I heard a slight scrabbling noise at the window and looked up to see a titmouse tugging at a white mat of cobwebs that had accumulated on the inside corner of the window frame over the past several months. The little bird quickly cleared off the entire edge of the window, even perching on top and tugging at something it found up there. Perhaps there were insects trapped in the webs, but it also flew off with some of the stuff, presumably to use in its nest. Webbing helps hold together a nest well. Meanwhile, the view from my nest of an office was looking a bit neater thanks to the bird.

Repurposing webs,
titmouse tidies my windows,
does my spring cleaning.