Holy Moly

 Most outings to the Greenway or walking around town elicit small exclamations: Hello, friend sparrow! Good to see you again, dandelion! And what are you, shiny little beetle? 

An nod of greeting to neighbors, a sometimes-rote acknowledgement of an acquaintance, an occasionally delighted encounter with an occasional passerby. But some lucky days you get a Holy moly! Not quite breathtaking, not quite rare and exciting, but a neat reward for venturing outside and keeping your eyes open.

The first holy moly was a golfball-sized gall on the thick square stem of a Cup Plant. I was familiar with the varieties of goldenrod galls, and some of the galls found on oak leaves and stems. But I'd never noticed one on Cup Plant. It has a cheerful little remnant of a dried leaf trailing off the top of the gall like a pennant. I snapped it off with a length of the stem to bring home for further study, carrying it in my hand to ensure it didn't get broken in a pocket.

It doesn't look like much...
maybe you had to be there.

As I was happily pondering my new gall (or as my mind wandered, variously my queenly scepter, my wizard's wand, my drum major baton...it was a stem that captured the imagination), I turned off the trail to the mowed path leading to the wetlands, and practically ran headlong into a huge bird cresting the hill from the wetlands. Holy moly! A second bird followed, and as my imagination transitioned from the gall-topped stem to fantastic sight before it, the unmistakable call of Sandhill Cranes erupted from the birds.

Without thinking I chucked my prized gall stem to the ground to try to catch a photo or two before they flew out of sight. Instead they swerved north and alighted in the corn stubble just to the north, carefully foraging long enough for a few more pictures. I picked up my stem, fortunately unharmed, and headed back north along the trail.  

And then--a holy moly trilogy! Clutching my gall stem in one hand, the other warming in a pocket, a chunky little bird flies past, silhouetted against the afternoon sun, its long bill hanging in front of it like a proboscis. An American Woodcock! I turn to watch it wing south, simply enjoying the moment without frantically attempting to get a photo of the fast-moving blob against the light, until I lost sight of it. As big and charismatic as the cranes are, the woodcock is a much more subtle bird and one I rarely catch sight of. What a treat of an afternoon!

Gift of a Gloomy Morning

 

After so many years of sharing the sights along the Greenway, I realize how often I let the opportunity to get good pictures--bright skies, low wind--influence whether I go out for a walk or stay home. In our visual-media-centric world, crisp pictures engage with an immediacy that the most beautifully crafted sentence can't match. 

 

 

So this morning when I went out to catch the sunrise...a little too late...I found myself in a gray
morning surrounded by birds that were always moving just a little too fast in a gloom a little too dark to capture. But what birds! It's the best time of year, when mornings are blanketed in birdsong, from the first cardinal just before dawn to the cacophony of red-winged blackbirds congregated in a tree. 

 

Tuning down my eyes and tuning up my ears, I headed toward the wetlands where I could hear Canada geese honking and...what's that? The sandhill cranes are back! Dueling calls from the south and the north echoed across the water.

 

 

Among the dry cattail stems individual blackbirds were trying out their pipes, along with cardinals and a song sparrow. Far overhead, the higher-pitched squeaky honks of greater white-fronted geese could be heard, and in the distance the occasional killdeer. 

 

 

Then, the darkening sky opened up with the soft patter of a drop of rain that quickly turned into a multitude. I strove to be like the birds, undaunted by a little water, but my (ill-considered) coat absorbs the water rather than letting it bead up and roll off, and my camera must be protected from the elements. As I trundle back towards home, a long rumble of thunder rolls across the cloud-covered sky and I consider how very limited the world is when only seen through the lens of a camera.