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.