The River Landing

What Have I Been Missing?

        Early on this cold, sunny morning, I went for a hike on the home trails, and then sat for a while with the honey bee hives. All the bees, of course, were inside keeping warm; no activity to watch. So I simply sat and listened. Soon a few blue jays and a red-bellied woodpecker called. And I could just hear a gray squirrel lightly screeching. Nearby there was a red-headed woodpecker on its overwintering territory. Official winter was still a few weeks away, but there had already been two rather substantial snow falls (rare for November in central Illinois); I resisted imagining this as a harbinger of a tough winter.
        Through the leafless black locust trees, I searched the vast blue skies for any sign of waterfowl, but could see and hear nothing except the faint sound of a truck one half-mile away on the highway. My thoughts were simple: After my coffee is empty, I’ll head back home for some breakfast.

 

Backyard at the bee hives (note the chair through the cedar branches)

        Then suddenly a dark gray, silent streak of a sharp-shinned hawk shot past at eye level only a few feet away. Hidden by a cedar tree, the hawk must not have seen me; otherwise, it would not have chosen such a close flight path. But in less than two seconds, it passed down the trail and away. If I had been facing another direction or blinked my eyes, I would have missed the hawk completely; not even the air through its wings made a sound that my ears could hear. And I wondered, How much have I missed over the years when my eyes and ears were focused elsewhere?

Morning Grackles

    The air was cold and crisp, sound carried, and fall colors radiated in the early morning sunshine. I stepped from under the back porch roof to meet the day, when, at that instant, thousands of common grackles began calling and taking flight all at once. All of the trees within several hundred feet were filled with these raucous, excited birds with more streaming in from elsewhere, just as large numbers left the area.

Back yard a few days before the grackle invasion.

    Standing still, without making a sound, I thought if I had been the factor that initially disturbed the birds, they would soon calm down. If anything, though, their loud chatter increased, as more grackles continued to arrive. When great numbers took to the air at once, they coalesced into a tight, organized formation, each bird following the movements of the others. But which bird was the leader? Or was there even a leader? Air moving through so many beating wings was a living wind, matching the complicated motions of the flock in tone, volume, and pitch; a symphony of physics. In an instant all of the chattering stopped…and then started up again all together as if directed by a conductor’s baton.
    I could have stood watching until all of the grackles flew away, but they might have stayed around for quite some time, and I was not willing to wait. Serious plans were in place for my day: run a few errands in town, check on the bee hives and chickens, walk some trails, read, tune my autoharp, read some more, and nap. So I abandoned the chaotic grackles for them to figure out their own problems, but I left with a feeling of being slightly impatient and of missing something important.