I love autumn. I love the changes that take place, some subtle and some not so, and the business at hand as all prepare for the long winter ahead. It is a settling in before the rush. A time to put summer away. It is, after all, September. The raking and mulching and trimming as the north winds start to blow will come soon enough. For now, it is enough to embrace the season that will become official tomorrow.
I’ve seen a young buck three times now, crossing our road at the very same spot just before the rise in the road. As the suns sets, it is a blind spot and I navigate it slowly these days. Unlike the does and fawns, who stop and often turn back if a car approaches, the bucks pay no attention to traffic. Their purpose in life is different, and this young buck, his first season of rut just beginning, has no sense of danger here on the cutoff.
Just before dinner last night, a large congregation of grackles were meeting out our front window. They were cawing and arguing, as grackles are wont to do, and they rimmed the bird bath, six and eight at a time. As many as that hung from the Harry Lauder Walking stick, bending its gnarled branches, as they impatiently awaited their turns. A few paced the ground and yet more hovered overhead in the upper branches of the mulberry tree.
Suddenly, a crowd of at least 60 flew up and darkened the sky before my very eyes and flew in a black cloud to the east just as Tom opened the back door and said “it is like the movie “The Birds” out here”. It seems another contingent was having a convention in the back bird bath as well. When Tom opened the back door, both parties took off in a mad flurry, only to return a few minutes later when danger had passed.
The Alfred Hitchcock thriller, “The Birds”, came to mind again as we wandered from front windows to back, watching in awe as this rowdy colony spent some more time drinking and creating a fuss. I like autumn and its changes, but, I think I’ll check the flue on the fireplace. Just in case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvDpuIdY5WU
