Flooded with song
May 17. By the river I hear a nondescript warbler song, one I should know. I spot the bird and try to focus the binoculars on it, but at that moment it flits across the river out of sight, there to resume singing. Struggling to stop worrying about the pressure of daily cares, I inhale the warm, fragrant air. Once I let go of the pull of home I know I'll start to enjoy myself, so I head for the bridge to follow the warbler. On the other side I am caught in the pull of the moment, that state in which the senses are continually drawn by one new discovery after another. The forest floor uncoiling with ferns. The elusive warbler, like Nimue, leading me stumbling through undergrowth. A mallard landing with a quiet swish on the water. Wet mud squishing into my sandals and between my toes. Some Canada geese raising a yodeling ruckus. Marsh marigolds, false Solomon's seal, and the last white trilliums fading to pink. My anxiety is quickly forgotten. Ferns not only go in the rich bottomland, but also in tiny pockets of soil in the limestone cliff. A pop can lying in the woods has ants crawling inside to gather nourishment. They're so large that their feet make a skittering sound in the can. I find a large maple snag with bracket fungi as wide as the length of my forearm and holes left by woodpeckers. Dead trees are essential to the ecology of the forest (read more in my article "Snags and nurse trees" in Ecology at Suite101). The mystery bird turns out to be nothing more than a black-and-white warbler. A loud "Wheep! Burble," in a tree over my head alerts me to the arrival of a great-crested flycatcher. Also newly returned is the indigo bunting. Returning across the bridge I stop to watch the cliff swallows. Taking a photo of sunlight on the water, I unwittingly capture two birds wheeling through the frame. They have at least a dozen mud nests under the bridge. How strange it seems that they would choose the bridge, constantly rumbling with heavy traffic, rather than a quiet spot along the cliff somewhere; but here, directly over the river, they have an abundant supply of insects. Sometimes little bright spots appear in the nest openings: the adults have white triangles on their foreheads. Obviously this prevents incoming birds from crashing into the one sitting
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