for the birds

On Friday, one of the most spectacular birding events I have witnessed this year, at least that I can remember.  (My memory of the season seems to get fuzzy at this point in time—I can barely recall what happened in September! Good thing I have this journal to refresh me.) The farm served as the stomping grounds for thousands and thousands of birds on their journey south.  In my limited but determinedly growing knowledge of birds (we are the loon farm after all) it was difficult to discern what kind of bird it was, but the calls were similar to red-winged blackbirds, and each one of them seemed to chatter, chirp, and trill as one continuous voice audible over ½ a mile away.  The flock landed in the tops of the old oak trees next to our field, swinging the branches back and forth, and when they finally took off for another grove, they stretched in undulating waves across the sky, moving over our heads in a long train that lasted for minutes, like little small black commas floating against the bright blue sky and reminding me I am but a small, small creature in this world.  Same sensation when I pass by the weeping willow bog and the loud barking of the Spring Peppers engulfs and surrounds one--the eternal rumblings of nature and I am always frozen with my mouth agape, humbled to be able to witness it.  It was my most spiritual experience of the week, or probably longer, and the other end of the spectrum was a little voice in my head that was irrationally reminding me of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds--oh the horror.

Luckily we still have woods and trees in this area.  I think about the miles and miles of dried cornfields throughout the Midwest, their own man-made sea of undulating monotony and what a pity for those birds that they have no place to stop and rest.  And pity for the farmers that miss an experience such as this.  The daily communion with the birds has to be one of the most understated, yet joyous perks of this job.  

This week is last CSA pick-up--the temperatures have finally regulated back to normal-ish October.  Thinking about this week's end of our CSA while it was 85 and humid was just plain confusing.  Especially since the end of the season always creeps up and I always find myself wondering how it all flew by so fast--the birds taking summer with them again and again.  Hope you too get a moment to commune with nature in these fleeting days between seasons.