Another essay from Herschel Raney in Conway, Arkansas. Don't you wish you
lived there?

>I stopped for three hawks coming up on the north side of Camp. Flapping
>and tracking each other?s tails in a circle. They were trying to find a
>thermal with the ground temperature at 57 degrees. The sun still low and
>east, apparently they had slept out there somewhere. Later 12 more and
>then 25 more. The bigger groups working and working until indeed they
>seemed to have found a thermal or wished one up. Something was taking
>them cloudward. They were all Broad-wings. Looked like about 90%
>juveniles. So they didn?t know better?sleeping in the flatlands, I mean.
>I saw at least one adult who should have whistled last night at dusk in
>the whistling Broadwing dialect: always drowse on the mountaintops and
>coast out with the sun. They made it out anyway. Perhaps the elders were
>there to witness the lesson. Afterward all headed southwest. October?s
>raptor funnel making arrows in the sky.
>The creeks were up from this weekend?s cloudburst. Lincoln?s and Swamp
>Sparrows moving from grass to trees and back as I alerted them.
>Blue-headed Vireos, my constant fall companions, fed. The first
>Golden-crowned Kinglet of the year made those shrill and buzzy two step
>notes of theirs and flashed that regulus crown at me. Something about
>hiding beneath the wings of Eagles, the story goes. The Gold rubbing off
>with the little bird?s stealth?the pretense at flying higher than the
>king of birds, fluttering out when the Eagle reached his limit to go just
>one jump higher. I think the Norwegians made that up. God bless them if
>they did. Thrashers smacked. Jays made unusual Jay noises and more
>Broadwings tried to put sky between us. To the west an October Osprey.
>The pond was punctuated by Cormorants and Egrets. The southeast edge was
>frogginess unlimited at its edges?leaping and leaping and leaping to
>water. A Ribbon Snake that was barely 8 inches long allowed me to lift
>him in the air. He was propped on grass and watching the frogs going and
>going with his thin neck ticking left right left right like a tennis
>match spectator waiting to snatch the ball. All eyebulge and hunger, born
>this summer, unafraid of giants yet. He was not doomed by this one but
>smitten and released. The close landscape of the pond was unmowed and
>dense with Goldenrod and Broomsedge and that draping density of late
>summer field Panicum. Inside it, Sedge Wrens and Marsh Wrens and jumpy
>Swamp Sparrows. The Sedge Wrens mostly silent, every now and then I would
>catch one who just pushed its head above the plant mat and gave me a good
>look before mousing down into the submarine, shadowed greenery again?the
>wrenderneath. I imagined that it was like the blanketed mazes of furniture
>and cardboard boxes we used to make under there, like the childhood,
>quick-fixed playrooms of past summer houses. I watched for wren
>tremblings, thinking of this. Above me the white quilted sky?that
>seasonal kind of clarity and cloudbelly. Hours like gifts. Mornings like
>this come followed by another and another and soon you have a whole life.
>Duck wings whistled over me. The Calico Moths were numerous now that I
>know their names and their pink flags of flight. Many battered butterflies
>on the go. One Monarch clocked my pants pocket and I reached down to cup
>her and let her go again. I stopped to think if I was between her and
>Mexico but I was not. She was lofting to the northeast for reasons of her
>own no doubt. Her compass worn down with her wings or her hopes adrift,
>she was heeding the call of something mysterious or final. Maybe I threw
>her off but it was not Mexico in her head.
>On the road out?a mob of Bobwhite. I could see at least ten. And I
>stopped the truck, turned off the engine to see what their plan was. I
>don?t see these Quailids often anymore. I always watch them, hoping to
>see some unusual color phase or a behavior to make me laugh. The lead
>males had their necks up high. Black, rufescent and creams?these are, as
>always, lovely birds. Everyone else was in the grassy ditch. It was clear
>they wanted the other side of the road. And like Turkey, these guys
>always prefer to walk. Or, well, skitter. Three males went over first,
>head?s high and feet spinning like cartoon birds. Then four more males and
>then a dense center cluster of females and then more males?the chivalrous
>arrangement. I wonder if the females are always centered? There were 25
>birds in the covey. Lord, I?m not sure I have ever seen that many in one
>group. Talk about your cardiac mob, the coronary gangbuster of noise they
>would make from blasting underfoot. I have enough years in me that I
>might not survive a 25 bird burst.
>At home, a small murder of crows were cleaning out my gutters. Or this
>appeared to be the goal. Several were leaning and cocking their heads down
>into the troughs. There could not be any leaf matter in their. There are
>no trees taller than my house yet. (When there is, I will be gone.)
>Sometimes these local boys will go across the street and get pecans and
>bring them to my driveway to bang them open, leaving me the shell casings
>on the lawn. Today, I don?t know what they saw. Perhaps a mouse? A roof
>mouse? A gutter rodent? Maybe they were storing pecans in my gutter? They
>were studiously at it whatever was up. They barely noticed me vanishing
>back into normal life. Or so it seemed. They probably haven?t noticed the
>sky all day. Or felt the clock. They?re busy living the Corvid life,
>mostly unaware of mine. But they should know, I prefer living in houses
>patrolled by crows. Always have. As omens go, I am comfortable with them.
>Days like this, their cawing just makes me pause and smile?another small
>kindness in the mix.
>Writing this now, I think I hear them still.
> Herschel