Date: 8/18/25 12:00 pm From: Charlie Teske <cteske140...> Subject: Re: [VTBIRD] 18 August 2025: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
I've heard others say they've seen no snakes this summer; any theories out there?
On Mon, 18 Aug 2025 09:06:31 -0400, Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> wrote:
5:38 a.m. (nineteen minutes before sunrise). Forty-six degrees (jacket on,
hands in pockets), wind North five miles per hour, gusting to twelve. Trees
moan and creak. An October morning in August ... a preview. Crescent moon
overhead, horns pointed west. In the East, Jupiter and Venus, the only
other bright spots in an otherwise clear sky, trail the moon, a great
celestial arc slowly dissolving into daylight.
An altogether refreshing and indelible sunrise. Orange blooms across the
East, glazes the brooding hills of New Hampshire. One linear cloud below
the crown of Smarts Mountain. No oppressive humidity. No Canadian wildfire
smoke. The careless breath on the Arctic crosses Vermont. A passage into
autumn. A world awash in transition.
Crickets and grasshoppers numbed to silence by the cold. Dragonfly
migration on hold. No bats this morning. No bees on the hummingbird
feeders. No hummingbirds, either.
*DOR: *garter snake, a yearling, about a foot long. Only the second I've
seen all summer.
*Drought Department: *lilac leaves, brittle and blackened. Gray birch
leaves, yellowing. The first maple leaves blush. Every morning, hose in
hand, I visit the raised beds and soak the strawberries. I haven't mowed
the side yard since mid-July. Newly minted wood frog, less than an inch
long, loiters in the flower bed, where it gets watered every morning.
5:46 a.m.: gray squirrel skips across Kings Highway. Doesn't look left or
right, mammal on a mission ... to my sunflower feeders. Great blue heron,
high over the hill, passing from one river to another, head on shoulders,
long wings, bowed, voice belches out of the folded pipe of a neck.
A scattered flock of ravens above the treetops, fifteen plus. Birds forged
in the furnace of early morning: sunlight kindles black feathers, turns
undersides molten copper. Ravens crabby and conversive—dyspeptic rain falls
uncontested. Even chickadees remain silent.
6:25 a.m.: first red-eyed vireo sings, a hesitant rendition of an all
too familiar song. Longer than usual pauses between phrases. Soon, there'll
be no phrases, no daylight sonatas. No dueling vireos, voices filling every
space in the hardwoods.
American goldfinches over a field of goldenrod, yellow above yellow.
*Among the Other Birds: *blue jays harvest green acorns, managing to call
with mouths full. Black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice. Red and
white-breasted nuthatches. Dark-eyed juncos flitting everywhere—in the
woods; across the dirt road; up and down, branch to road ... eye-catching
tail feathers, bone white. American robins are calling, not singing. Purple
finch. Northern flicker, a disturbing laugh. Whispering black-and-white
warbler. Northern cardinal.
8:43 a.m.: Fifty-four degrees. Torpor over, ruby-throated hummingbird
visits feeder. Then, another and another, wavelet after wavelet. Half an
hour later, an upsurge of activity. Chaos at the feeder. The Gulf of Mexico
looms.
