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Category: landscape

Patience of the Predator

Patience of the Predator

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Yesterday was a day for wild things. I spotted a doe and a box turtle in the woods, and then, while dining al fresco last evening, was visited by a red-shouldered hawk.

The bird landed on the deck railing, just a few feet from the dinner table, and scanned the landscape. I suppose he was wanting his own dinner, perhaps a chipmunk or squirrel. For a few chilling moments I wondered if it might be me. 

The hawk perched for what seemed like forever, long enough for me to slowly turn in the chair and keep my eyes on him, long enough for me to become restless. I had finished my dinner; he’d yet to have his.

My phone was inside, so I missed the chance to photograph him. Instead, I tried to memorize his details: the long, substantial chest; the yellow legs, hooded eyes and beak that meant business. He was completely still as he surveyed the terrain, able to spot the faintest trace of movement. 

What impressed me most was his patience. He was prepared to wait all night if need be. His was a patience born of need, the patience of the predator.

(A hawk I photographed several years ago. Last night’s visitor was much closer.)

Bluuuue Sky

Bluuuue Sky

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It’s not cerulean or azure or aquamarine. To describe the sky I saw on yesterday’s walk, we need a new word. I propose bluuuue. Not blue, or even bluuue. This is bluuuue (four ‘u’s) at its purest and most intense. The hue of a cloudless sky.

I have a reason for describing this on Father’s Day.  Dad was the king of blue skies. He didn’t seem to notice the clouds, or if he did, he chose to ignore them.

So in honor of him, and fathers everywhere, the bluest bluuuue sky photo I can find.
Lovely, Dark and Deep

Lovely, Dark and Deep

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It’s less than three weeks till summer solstice. By 5 a.m. the first birds are singing, and darkness doesn’t fall till almost 9 p.m. At this time of year, light is our constant companion. 

Perhaps that’s why the woods appeal. They are, to quote Robert Frost, “lovely, dark and deep.” Though he described a winter landscape, mine is a summery one: oaks, maples and sycamore in full leaf, the path that winds through them sheltered and shady.

What mysteries lie down these trails? What refreshment will they bring? Will the woods be cooler than the street? These are questions I want to answer — and will. 

Long River

Long River

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This morning I’m thinking of friendship, especially friendship of long standing. People who go back years and how much they become a part of your life. 

I had time to contemplate this on the drive home yesterday, which was up into the mountains where it barely looked like spring, then down into the alleys where spring is in full flower.

Longtime friendship is like that, too, seasons and altitudes, peaks and valleys. Through them all, a long river of connection. 

With Its Diadem

With Its Diadem

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I took an evening walk last night, one week after the eclipse. Without thinking I headed west, toward the setting sun. 

I think of our nearest star differently now, having seen it, well, naked is not exactly the word. Exposed isn’t either. Transformed? Chastened? I won’t use Emily Dickinson’s phrase “without its diadem” because a corona is a diadem if ever I saw one.

It’s more that the sun and I (and millions of other people) now have a special bond. We’ve been through something together. So when I watch it sink low in the sky and redden the horizon, I think of when the horizon reddened in every direction. I remember the cool air and the bird song and the glowing white ring.

It’s nice to be reminded of all that.

(Photo: NASA)

In the End

In the End

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Back home now after two 12-hour drives that bookended a day of planetary splendor. First, I want to credit the supporting cast, the resplendent redbud trees that lined the highway and gave my weary eyes something to feast on, counteracting the white-line fever. 

And the clouds themselves, which provided a light show late Sunday as crepuscular rays slanted down to the flat, black, Indiana fields, already plowed, waiting to be planted.  The clouds that politely parted on Monday, letting the sun and moon steal the show. The clouds that returned Tuesday, making for a muted and pleasant drive east.

But it was Earth’s star and satellite that stole the show. Our own sun, in a form I’d never seen before. Not blotted out but transformed, covered enough to let its true splendor shine forth “like shining from shook foil.” 

Since Monday afternoon I’ve been trying to put the feeling into words. It was awe-inspiring, yes. Once-in-a-lifetime, yes again. Most of all, it was comforting. It was light winning out in the end. 

(Monday, April 8, 3:04 p.m.)

Total Eclipse

Total Eclipse

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The temperature dropped.  Birds sang their roosting songs. And then, the sun went away. All that was left was a ring of fire. 

Our safety glasses came off, someone blasted “A Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and for almost four minutes we gaped in amazement at the darkened world, the weird twilight, our hilltop transformed.

I looked up and around, to the left and the right, marveled at the 360-degree “sunset.” I felt a shiver up my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. And then, it was over. 

“This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt,” wrote Annie Dillard in an essay called “Total Eclipse,” “the universe as a clockwork of loose spheres, flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.”

I looked at my photos, none of which captured the corona, and there, glimmering in the lower right-hand corner of one, was a single white dot. It was the planet Venus — in the middle of an Indiana afternoon. 

Witness to Wonder

Witness to Wonder

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It happened at 6:50 p.m. the night before last. A burst of light in the sky, a fireball or meteor, a visitor from space, vanished before those who glimpsed it even knew what they were seeing. 

What was I doing at the time? Swapping out the old red plastic egg crate toy bins for new cloth ones? Or had I already come upstairs to fix dinner? One thing is certain: I was not outside looking up. 

I’m thinking of Bruegel’s famous painting The Fall of Icarus, and Auden’s poem about it, how human suffering can be obscured by the ordinariness of life. The same can be said of wonder.  How often we miss it. Our heads are down, focused on the page or the skillet, the task at hand. 

Most of the videos sent to the American Meteor Society are from home security cameras. There’s no one around to see the meteorological marvel. But one of them shows a man taking out his garbage. You see the falling star with its long tail. You see him see it. He stops in his tracks, trash bag in hand. A witness to wonder. 

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Woods in White

Woods in White

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The main roads were plowed by Saturday, but wind chill kept me inside. By yesterday, though, temps edged up to the high 30s, and I was itching to leave the house. Would the Reston trails be clear? 

Some were, and those that weren’t I avoided, snapping a photo instead. 

I trod paths I haven’t walked in a while, passed the “laughing tree,” which now sports a white mustache. 

There was a thin layer of frosting on bowed limbs, like a squiggle of toothpaste on a toothbrush. 

I hiked for more than an hour. I was not alone. 

Split Rail

Split Rail

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A frosty walk this morning, a split-rail fence beside me part of the way.  Surely this is fencing lite, only the barest barricade, I think, as I amble beside one of the more open models (two horizontals). 

Though now they now seem more decorative than anything else, split-rail fences have a long history in this country. They were used to mark property boundaries, protect crops and livestock, and, during the Civil War, troops burned them to keep warm. 

In my neighborhood, split-rail fences are the only kind allowed in front yards. In the back you can go wild with a picket or other plank styles, but the front must be open, natural — much like the snippet of yard I photographed this morning. 

It’s a fence … but barely.