February 4, 2010, journal entry

Six miles.

It is loud.

I have just ascended 63 Steps and have entered a short swath of rock and dirt path, and birds are everywhere. And they are loud. I must stop to absorb it all. It is unbelievable. It is amazing. Sparrows and starlings fly in crowds, partying it seems to me, yet they never get in each other’s way as they gracefully land on bushes that pulse in their perch.

~

Magpies sit atop green pine trees, owning their space without apology, chattering noisily, their black and white tux-like plumage and long tail, a luminescent tie in blue. Mag, mag, mag, mag, mag mag, they call, jabbering as they leap and giggle, cartwheel in fast-forward then rewind in the twisted knuckles of Winter tree branches.

~

Loquacious crows fly in a manner seemingly haphazard, definitely unlike the firm geese in their disciplined yet rotating arrow shape in the sky. The crows chase each other, shadows frolicking, shoot up and down, spread and compress, tossing out their calls of caw caw, caw caw, announcing their place in the universe. As the crow flies...throwing a dark net on the ground like dusk winding down to night black.

~

I hear loud coveys of quails click like my late summer grasshoppers, and they surprise me when they lift off in numbers in a brown turbulent arc of wind and resettle, melting in the tailfeathers of wheat-colored dried grasses.

~

Starling on the staffs of high wires are loud and vocal. Not native to the United States, they were introduced to New York City’s Central Park in the early 1890’s by Eugene Schieffelin who wished to bring all the avian species in Shakespeare’s writing to the States. They chatter, trill, and rattle, rotate and roll, individuals melding into a singular aggregation.

~

Small winter sparrows sweep upward for a moment, then dive under branches only to resurface in ripples, churring and chirping in their own aria. Their small cup-like nests, where Nature nurtures her own, are my favorite of all nests I have seen (although I wish I could see the nest of a hummingbird).

~

Ashes, Cunning, Death, Despair, Dust, Folly, Gammon, Hope, Jargon, Joy, Life, Madness, Peace, Plunder, Precedent, Rags, Rest, Ruin, Sheepskin, Want, Waste, Wigs, Words, Youth, and Spinach. (Bleak House, Charles Dickens, the names of Miss Flite’s birds.)

~

I stand still for several minutes until I begin to chill. I think I must return later in the day, and I do return like Spring moments during Winter with my BlackBerry camera in hand. I walk slowly and carefully. Earlier when I was running, the birds’ chattering was constant, not pausing in my presence, yet later, the ringing trees silence immediately upon my second arrival. I stand still for 15 minutes as sparrows land on the tops of weeds and branches, wings like quivering leaves in wind. Eventually, they return to their squeaking and churring, ignore me, and crows restore their caw caw, caw caw to metered lines as they gyre, and magpies, to their volleying calls of mag mag. The starlings and all resume their important work of pedaling the ancient spinning Wheel of Nature and swirl and swivel, bouncing between trees and skies. I want to capture them in the steps of my stride, so I lift my hand to snap pictures, but they flicker and swoop away, too quick and far away for my BlackBerry.

~

I am reminded of fabulous words like bewitching, superb, magnificent, light, fantastic, enormous, and magic.

~

(Although I do think I need binoculars. And another in-depth field guidebook on birds.)

~


Bird's Nest through BlackBerry Viewfinder on Binoculars


Where a Sparrow Was Just Seconds before through BlackBerry Viewfinder on Binoculars

~

Makes me feel ridiculously happy.

~

Sudden shower—
clutching the blades of grass
a flock of sparrows.
(Buson haiku)


GL, 2/4/2010. Prevail.