An Exchange of Words: David B. Coe’s Weblog

Thanks to all for the great comments on yesterday’s post.  Woke up this morning and found that my newly-minted teenager was very much like the child who lived here yesterday and the day before.  One day at a time.  That’s the ticket.

I seem to be in the middle of another good writing week.  I’m making good progress on the book, and more important, I like what I have so far.  I’m even finding time to birdwatch every morning before I sit down to write.   Spring migration is starting to wind down.  We probably have another three or four days, but after that it’ll slow down and we’ll settle into a typical Tennessee summer — hot days, thunderstorms in the late afternoons, muggy nights spent sitting on the porch, listening to the crickets and frogs, watching the lightning bugs.  Sounds good to me.

Yesterday was dance day here in Sewanee.  Both of our daughters, like so many of the young girls here in town, take dance lessons from the university dance instructor and her students.  Yesterday afternoon, they had their recital.  Our girls have both been taking lessons of one sort or another since they were four, so we’re old hands at this now.  Still it’s fun to see them up on stage, and it’s always a hoot to see the newest crop of four year-olds up there, showing off the few ballet moves they’ve learned, their eyes flicking toward the wings where their teacher stands running through the routine with them.

Both of our girls were in two dances:  jazz and tap for the older one, ballet and tap for the younger one.  They did great.  They’ve learned a lot over the years and they both seem to have a knack for dance.  I think it’s been good for them.  They have a sense of balance, of movement, of rhythm that they might not have otherwise.  And when they’re doing other activities – swimming or soccer, for instance — and their coach gives them instruction, they have enough body awareness to put that advice to use.

Last night we went to see the college kids give their recital.  They gave a good performance; the best I can remember, actually.  It was an eclectic mix:  ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, swing, modern.  Used to be that I’d watch my girls during the day and the college students at night and take some comfort in noting the distance my kids still had to go to be like the older girls.  This year, not so much.  My older one is growing up fast and looking more and more like the college kids every day.  Scary.  And fun.

Went for a photo shoot this morning.  It was foggy when I left the house a little after eight.  Sunday morning.  The roads were empty save for a lone jogger.  I hiked back down into Shakerag Hollow, where the trout lilies and dutchman’s britches and larkspur are blooming.  The white trillium are starting to open; the purple trillium will be out by the end of the week.  A few warblers were singing, Pileated Woodpeckers were drumming and calling.  The rains we’ve had over the past couple of weeks have filled the streambeds and flooded parts of the trail.  The trees are just beginning to leaf out, but the forest floor is deep green already.  

Great morning.  I got some good photos, which I’m still going through.  I’ll have to get out again during the week.

The first spring migrants (talkin’ birds here) arrived in my yard yesterday.  Several of them, actually.  There were no fewer than four Black-throated Green Warblers singing in the bare oaks surrounding our house, their five note song seesawing with buzzy precision.  Beautiful birds:  bright green on their crowns and backs, golden yellow faces, and jet black spreading from their throats down to their breasts.

A couple of Black-and-white Warblers were singing as well, thin high-pitched notes that for me are the sound of early spring here in the Appalachians.  Black-and-white Warblers are tree climbers, like nuthatches but sleeker, dressed smartly in pinstripes.

And finally, there was a single Blue-headed Vireo (formerly known as the Solitary Vireo) singing from the very top of a white oak.  Vireo song is the avian equivalent of Muzak.  Sweet notes, simple melody, and the birds can be singing for five or ten minutes before you even realize that the sound is there.  Their song blends, provides background for the more dynamic songs of their fellow migrants.  This vireo’s appearance is as unassuming as his song.  The blue of his head is closer to slate than it is to the electric blue of an Eastern Bluebird, and his white eye-rings and lores give him a spectacled appearance.  The warblers are dashing, handsome; the vireo has a geekish look.  This may be why he’s one of my favorites.

Spring migration.  There is no better time of year to be a birder.  These three species are just the beginning; an appetizer, if you will.  In a typical spring I’ll see twenty-five species of warbler, three or four species of vireo, and an assortment of tanagers, orioles, grosbeaks, buntings, flycatchers, and others.  I’ll post my sightings here as the spring progresses.  

And if any of you out there are birders as well, I hope you’ll share your sightings with me.  Happy birding.

Today’s music:  Bruce Cockburn

One of those days:  errands to take care of, an order to submit for the local coop (which I run), pictures to frame for an upcoming photography exhibit (more on that in a future post), a short story to revise (more on that in a future post).  And so a short blog post.  Just a couple of items:

Saw a pair of wood ducks on the pond near our house yesterday — a sure sign that spring is nearly here.  Beautiful birds — look them up in a book or on the web.  It’s worth the time.  The male is one of the most stunningly colorful ducks we have in North America, but the female, whose plumage is far less showy, is lovely as well. 

Eliot Spitzer.  I like him.  Had I still lived in New York, I would have voted for him in 2006.  But what an idiot.  Why is it that men in power (or out of power, for that matter) have so much trouble keeping their pants zipped?  Should he resign?  I don’t know.  But I have noticed that the same commentators on the right who said that Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) should be forgiven for his dalliances with a prostitute, are now saying that Spitzer has to go.  They say hypocrisy is the issue, because Spitzer was such a determined — some would say self-righteous — prosecutor.  To which I respond, Yes, but David Vitter has made a career of claiming to support “family values.”  Who’s the greater hypocrite?

All right; gotta go.

Today’s music:  Johnny A.

After going on a bit yesterday about how glad I was that I no longer had a dog, I was reminded this morning that dog ownership does have its benefits.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we’re caring for our friends’ dog, Violet, a medium-sized, short-haired mutt. She’s sweet as can be, but because she’s just barely out of puppyhood she has A LOT of energy.  So this morning, instead of going to the gym for my usual workout, I put Violet in the car, drove out to a trailhead at the edge of the plateau, and took her on a hike.

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When we first moved into our house, one of my brothers gave us a housewarming gift of several birdfeeders and birdhouses to put up in the yard.  One of these feeders in particular became a favorite of ours.  It was big enough to hold lots of sunflower seed, and the birds descended on it each winter in droves.  But it was made of wood, and the damp Tennessee winters took their toll.  This year we had to replace it with a prefab cedar wood feeder from Home Depot.  It has plexiglass on the sides instead of real glass, and it’s smaller than the one it replaced.  All in all, though, it’s not a bad feeder.  

Or so I thought.

Two mornings after putting it out, I came downstairs, looked out the window, and saw that the feeder’s top had been pushed back (that’s how you fill it:  by flipping the top over), the plexiglass had been bent out of the way, and all the seed had been eaten out of the thing.  Clearly, a squirrel had found its way into the feeder, something that never happened with the old one.  I refilled it, repositioned the squirrel baffle on the feeder pole, and waited.  It happened two more times.  

Yes, I know:  Squirrels need to eat, too.  But this was about more than seed.  This squirrel was stealing from me, violating the sanctity of my birdfeeders.  I’d never seen the critter who was stealing my seed.  But I knew he was out there.  To quote Khan, “He tasks me, and I shall have him!”

So this weekend, I rigged something up using strips of hardware cloth (galvanized steel wire mesh), a staple gun, and a couple of screws.  As a result, my nemisis can’t flip up the top without learning to unlatch the hardware cloth from the screw, and he can’t grab hold of the edge of the plexiglass to bend it away, again because of the wire mesh.  He hasn’t gotten to my seed since.  I am now prepared to declare myself the victor in this struggle for bird feeder supremacy.  I’m feeling quite proud of myself.

That is, until I consider that all I’ve managed to do is out think a rodent with a brain the size of a peanut.  I remember when my kids were infants, crawling around, getting into stuff.  And I’d rig something up to thwart them, and be so proud.  And then Nancy would remind me that I’d done nothing more than outwit my nine month-old.  

Never mind that, though.  Life’s victories are precious and few.  I like to take them where and when I can.

Today’s “music”:  Morning Edition from NPR

Here, as promised, are a couple of the photos I snapped yesterday while at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge.  Enjoy!

I took the day off from writing today and drove out to the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge near Dayton, Tennessee (Dayton was home to the Scopes Monkey Trial, for those of you wondering why the name sounds familiar).  The Hiwassee refuge is located along the Tennessee River in a farming area, and each winter it is home to literally tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes.  The Sandhill Crane Festival, a big event in these parts, is scheduled for next week, but I try to go each year before the festival so that I can enjoy a quiet day of birding.

The cranes generally gather near the water in corn fields, where they graze in enormous flocks.  The corn fields were somewhat depleted this year, as a result of a summer of drought and exceedingly warm weather in the late fall, when the birds first arrived.  As a result, I saw thousands of birds today instead of tens of thousands.  Still, it was very cool.

Sandhill Cranes are big birds — they stand nearly four feet tall and their wingspan exceeds six feet.  They’re gray with a bright red cap.  But perhaps the most distinctive thing about them is their call — a rolling, guttural, bugling that is distinctive when one bird does it.  When thousands do it at the same time it is indescribable:  a cacaphony of sound that is at once amusing and impressive.  Most of the birds I saw were on the ground, though small groups — five, ten, fifteen birds — were continually flying in to join them.  Occasionally, something would spook them, and hundreds would take off at once, their wings drumming the air in unison.

It was an amazing day.  I’ve seen the cranes many times before, but I never tire of it, and I’ll certainly go back again next year.  I had my camera with me, and if any of the pictures I took came out well, I’ll post them over the weekend.

Today’s music:  Crane song