Wood thrush returned today. I heard them in the dreary damp behind the house, maybe they were waiting for the sun to return and they just gave up. Now I wonder if the one that banged into my studio door will make it back.
The wood thrush is my favorite songbird that lives in the dense woods behind my house but the songster is only here in summer. Last September I spooked this one thrush feeding along the driveway and it flushed straight into its collision with the glass. I picked it up to comfort it. My wounded thrush blinked and panted much like a running back hit by Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews. Its feet clinched. A death grip? I hoped not. But wait, it moved its head right and left indicating its neck was not broken. It only needed another living being—that would be me—bringing aid and comfort, muttering "You're not alone." I have done this sort of thing before only to have the poor songbird die in my hand, but this care-giving act felt more positive. Its whacked senses slowly began to return. In time, it hopped up, standing on my outstretched palm, looked around as if to say, "I am thrush. I bid you adieu. I have miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go." But I now wonder seven months later, did it return?
Please forgive the vulgar nature of this post, but I am a third generation hillbilly well steeped in Smoky Mountain folklore, so I should know this, be it tawdry or otherwise. Carolina sweet shrub, a.k.a. strawberry bush is in bloom behind my house. But to the mountaineers, it had a much racier name, one perhaps not used in mixed company, “boobie-bush.” It seems, if a mountain woman wanted to freshen herself up a bit, she would sometimes pluck one of the red flowers and slip it into her cleavage. Exposed to the body heat of such tight quarters, the bloom would begin to release the sweet aroma of ripe strawberries. A most delightful fragrance for there or anywhere else, particularly for some male like me who has a penchant for the red fruits. •
Many thanks to all who attended the Ijams hike early yesterday morning. Super job Amy Oakey for the planning and leading the way. Thanks Nick and Doug. Loved the improvised directional stick arrows pointing out the correct path that were fashioned by the lead group. Perfect pathfinder markers; so, so James Fenimore Cooper-ish. And for a time we felt so lost in the lushness, I thought I heard jungle drums. Or was it a pileated? And weren't we out of the continental U.S. for awhile? And once again we encountered the fairy wood nymph I named Evangeline last month (my nod to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow). Next month a new adventure.
Indigo buntings are royalty. They sing their proud territorial songs from the uppermost branches of trees. The tip top. Regal. They do not hide in the canopy like cuckoos, they are perched high, displaying their rich indigo color in full sun for all to see, otherwise it wouldn't be seen. And they eat insects, fresh spring caterpillars. But where are the canopy leaves this mid-April day? And the bugs that eat them?
Yet, I have had two indigo buntings groveling for castoff seeds on the floor of my second floor deck, there among the commoners, the sparrows and mourning doves, for four days. Gadzooks.
Please tell me this is not yet another sign we are in the last days. Too dramatic? Perhaps. Time will tell, but things aren't right. Yesterday's Enterprise. Tasha Yar should not be here. And indigo buntings should be on the zenith of the canopy.
(Forgive the poor photo. It was taken with a cell phone through a window.) •
