Date: 10-09
Location: South Bridge leading to Botanical Gardens
Time: 0940-0959
Weather: 45˚F, overcast with a few drops of rain occasionally
An energetic melody rang through the air but there didn’t seem to be any birds visible. Leaves fell through the air like rain, colorful, ceaseless, and persistent. Chickadees, no cedar waxwings jumped to and fro on a birch tree. The tree had white bark, with horizontal lines at every 5-inch interval. An eastern gray squirrel jumped up onto a branc
h, startling the birds onto a nearby birch, yet they returned after a while. The birds had brown wings, tails tipped with yellow, and golden breasts. A white stripe ran down their dark faces. They seemed to fly about in a circle then returned to perch onto the tree. Were they mating? A few nibbled on the undersides of some leaves, so they may have been eating at the tiny aphids that started to rain down onto my journal as a result of my standing under the tree. As they prepared to transition from flying to perching, they seemed to flap furiously in midair, hovering, and then dropped gently onto the branch. It’s amazing how they can change directions so quickly in midair. People continued to walk pass me, some staring curiously at me staring up the tree. It’s peculiar how they ignored the flutter of creatures above them, yet they had more interest in other human beings. Even a long queue of children passed noisily without a glance upward. Each time a particularly large group passed, the birds would alight in alarm, yet they continued to return, always a reminder of Nature’s intransience.
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