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vaneramossee! seee! seeeeeeeeeee! seeeeeeeeee! !!!
See!
Every day I hear them when I walk along the river. They have gathered in nomadic winter flocks once more, clustering and whistling like garrulous, hooded elves in the tops of dead trees. More often I only hear their soft, reedy voices scattering somewhere out of sight. What keeps them here I don't know. They have finished off the elderberries. Soon they'll tire of whatever it is. Highbush cranberries? Wild grapes? Then disappear without trace, only to return inexplicably in a flock of hundreds some bitter February morning.
They aren't shy, merely distant and detached from the human realm, more so than other birds. Living on berries and insects, they never need to come down to earth where more of us would realize how sleek and dashing they are. In the heavens they wheel and dive. They move in a collective, landing as one and passing fruit from one mouth to another up the branch. They are cheerful and energetic but offer no song, only their high trills, uttered all at once like a scurry of school children as they lift and vanish from the crown of a tree.
Forever and ever, every diminutive whistle I hear rising into the sky will remind me of him.
See!
Every day I hear them when I walk along the river. They have gathered in nomadic winter flocks once more, clustering and whistling like garrulous, hooded elves in the tops of dead trees. More often I only hear their soft, reedy voices scattering somewhere out of sight. What keeps them here I don't know. They have finished off the elderberries. Soon they'll tire of whatever it is. Highbush cranberries? Wild grapes? Then disappear without trace, only to return inexplicably in a flock of hundreds some bitter February morning.
They aren't shy, merely distant and detached from the human realm, more so than other birds. Living on berries and insects, they never need to come down to earth where more of us would realize how sleek and dashing they are. In the heavens they wheel and dive. They move in a collective, landing as one and passing fruit from one mouth to another up the branch. They are cheerful and energetic but offer no song, only their high trills, uttered all at once like a scurry of school children as they lift and vanish from the crown of a tree.
Forever and ever, every diminutive whistle I hear rising into the sky will remind me of him.
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-01 07:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-01 08:24 am (UTC)I wondered why the name sounded so familiar. Turns out the red-whiskered bulbul is listed in my well-thumbed NGS Field Guide to the Birds of North America. They were introduced in Florida and appear on page 346. The cedar waxwing and Bohemian waxwing appear on page 344, so perhaps they are near relatives, different families though.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-01 08:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-01 09:22 am (UTC)