Field Bolg Journal 3
Jon Levinsohn
It was October 9th, 2009, a little after 10:00 am. It was about 12O C, the sky was overcast and it began drizzling after about 15 minutes. The cemetery was being mowed on a sit-down-lawn-mower for the whole duration of my stay, a train whistle blared for a few minutes, the rushing of the Green River was louder than normal, and traffic on route 2 and route 43 could be heard, all of this made it difficult to focus on the bird songs.
The first noteworthy sighting was slightly outside my site, on the bridge connecting the cemetery to route 43. A group of third-graders were gathered at the far end of the bridge staring at the center of the bridge. Along the guardrail, about 6 meters away from me, and halfway between the sides of the bride perched what I believe to be a red-tail hawk. It looked more brownish than red-tail hawks I have seen before, and it was very large up close; from head to the end of its tail was probably a little shy of half a meter. The hawk seemed perturbed by the third graders and me. It spastically turned its head trying to scope out both ends of the bridge as quickly as possible. After several minutes, the hawk finally glided down to some rocks along the Green River, where it watched us from a distance in a far less agitated state.
I moved along to my site, and I had never seen so many birds at my sight before. I first saw two blue jays perched on a small maple tree. Silently, one inched toward the other. Suddenly, both took off, one trailing the other by a third of a meter flying with seeming reckless abandon as they weaved through trees and shrubs. Such games of chase quickly became a theme. I immediately started to notice many, many bird songs, most of which I cannot identify or even give an adequate description a sound that resembled rattling, which seemed to be orchestrated as a call and response between two birds. I did hear the call of the catbird, and subsequently saw many of these birds, but I could not observe any of them for very long as they were constantly moving from tree to tree and the foliage has not yet fallen. I saw a small woodpecker (perhaps 10 cm long from head to tail), though I could not get a good enough view to further determine the species. It perched in only dead branches, and would work its way around the branch in a circular method such that it made sure that it had pecked at every point along the circumference of the branch. I was astounded to the speed at which it pecked the branch; its head became a whir. A brownish colored red-tail hawk (which I believe to be the same one that was earlier perched on the bridge) then passed over the woods, gliding slowly, but the bird songs went uninterrupted. I heard melodic whistling, which proved enjoyable to hear, but unhelpful in identifying the birds. I heard and the “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” of the black capped chickadee, and saw several on my walk out of the cemetery. I then spent a few minutes confusing the fruit of the sumac tree with a cardinal, and decided to turn my attention to the ground, upon realizing my ineptitude and sore neck.
I immediately noticed mayfly hovering lazily among the leaves of a sumac, which seemed like an easy meal for a hungry bird. A squirrel darted out of the woods briefly, near the location where I have seen a small animal hole. It appeared to be reddish and small, but most striking about the small animal was the lack of fur on its tail. Losing such fur as it starts to get cold seems to be a poor survival strategy, though who am I to argue with millions of years of evolution.
As I started to leave, I noticed that the Norway maple seem to still be very far behind the other trees in terms of their leaves turning colors; they were still very green (with tar spots).