September 13, 2012
Our house sits on bedrock beside a small old quarry. We and the quarry are surrounded by big old trees and growing young trees, so summer mornings are full of birdsong echoing off the high ceilings through open windows. It can be cacophonous – I often feel like I’m working in a jungle tree-house up here at my desk.
In mid September the orioles are gone and the robins, and many of the other highly vocal summer guys who need to be far away elsewhere come frost, so the starlings can reclaim the trees. They’re out there in force this morning – summarizing the past seven months, discussing the route south, setting up the hierarchy for next spring, commenting on what they saw yesterday and last week. I hear loons, cats, robins, sparrows, bobolinks & raccoon babies & squealing children in their chatter – they possess a phenomenally vast & comic vocabulary. How can people dislike starlings?
…. morning tasks are done, sun has risen to midpoint. Starlings are off at work somewhere – likely practising that one-mind-twothousand-bird flock thing they do.
I shall harvest tomatoes, clear the floors, rescue the pump, and attend to my own work here, while the crickets sing their high-frequency song. I won’t forget to look up.
photos to come.