Date: 8/6/25 7:43 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 06 August 2025: Deweys Pond (530 feet) and the Ottauquechee River
4:54 a.m. (fifty minutes before sunrise). Sixty-one degrees, wind East,
less than one mile per hour. Sky, lightly clouded. Haze and wildfire smoke
mask the sun, which sneaks into the sky almost unnoticed—the world awakens
in baby steps. Except for occasional bubbles rising and bursting,
Ottauquechee River is flat, a clear, reflective surface. A pair of wood
ducks rises out of Deweys Pond and passes above the lily pads.
Coming and going, two kingfishers just above the water and rattling (four
kingfishers if I count their pristine reflections). Whenever one dives,
bird and image merge, then separate—one dripping and shaking; the other, a
roiled and undulating impression—a momentary Monet.
Bumblebees work morning glories, which are wide open, flowers jiggling
under the weight of bees. Goldenrod and Joe-Pye-weed bloom, yellow and pink
in fields of green. Jewelweed is in flower. Milkweed in seed, pods dangling.
Kingfisher lands in the crown of a fallen and barkless black ash. An
interlocking web of reflections. Calls. Looks at me and leaves. Returns
with a friend. Two birds. Two echoes. Birds rattle, then bolt. Echoes keep
pace out over the river.
An eastern kingbird and a willow flycatcher, picture-perfect poster on the
top of nearby shrubs, chase moths over the pond, and then return to the
same perch. Chomp and swallow. Four cedar waxwings fly across the river and
vanish. American goldfinches, everywhere and calling. A chevron of Canada
geese (eleven, I think) over the far treeline, honking.
*Addendum:* American crow (constantly complaining), blue jay, song sparrow,
eastern towhee, gray catbird, northern cardinal, warbling vireo (no
red-eyes), and a solitary sandpiper, solitarily wandering along the far
shore. A silence of warblers ... first morning in more than three months.
Juvenile eagle calls in the dark, hunched over, details obscured in dim
light.
5:38 a.m. Adult eagles fly to the nest tree. One carries food. Juvenile
straightens up. Everyone calls and poses for a family portrait, but I have
no camera—just notes.
*Department of Disassembly: *5:41 a.m. One parent leaves. Then, two minutes
later, the other. Both flew across the Ottauquechee. One eagle calls from
the far side of Deweys Pond: juvenile answers, an embarrassment of sound.
*Department of Idioms: *5:48 a.m. Juvenile stands on the rim of the nest
and whines. Then, flaps its wings and hops and flutters to the end of one
of the branches that support the nest, as far away as it can be and remain
in the same tree. The eaglet is out on a limb.
Twenty minutes later, from somewhere upriver, a parent calls. The juvenile
answers. A falsetto chat.
6:38 a.m. Motivated by either hunger or boredom, the eagle returns to the
nest, wings stirring air, and picks at breakfast.
The parents fall silent ... there's only so far you can push your
offspring.
