Doodling in the Gloam

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

From pearls before breakfast to peents before dinner.

It felt like the scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the local yokels are waiting along a mountaintop roadside for the flying saucers to arrive. I had stationed myself below a clump of young white ash trees in the old field near the Billings barn. I had arrived by bicycle after taking the long, hilly way around on an after-work ride. I was relaxing with some cheese and crackers and a vacuum bottle of Earl Grey tea, waiting for the show to begin.

I had just heard the story of how Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post had arranged for Joshua Bell – perhaps America’s finest concert violinist – to play incognito in a busy Washington, D.C. subway station during morning rush hour to see how many people would stop to listen. Wearing a baseball cap and casual clothes with the case for his multi-million dollar Stradivarius open at his feet for tips, Bell played a series of difficult and dramatic classical pieces for nearly 45 minutes. In that time, hundreds of people passed by, most not even glancing in his direction. Here was a musician who regularly plays at packed concert halls for adoring fans who pay hundreds for tickets and no more than a handful of harried commuters paused for even a minute to listen. Only one person recognized him and he collected a mere $32.17 in tips.

Now, I’m no classical music fan - about the closest I get is when I enjoy Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring - but when I read the Post article online and watched the hidden-camera videos, I felt my eyes welling up. What has America become? What are we doing to ourselves? Do we appreciate greatness only when we have to pay for it or when some anointed expert points it out for us? Has our popular culture dumbed us down so much that we are unfamiliar with true genius? Is our work so important that we can’t take a minute from our hectic schedule to bask in beauty? Are we so burdened by debt and taxes that we can’t afford to pause for a moment? Do our profit-hungry employers push us so hard that we dare not take a breath?

On this cool, early-April Moose Hill evening, I was pausing. There was no wind, but I could feel the cool air draining off the hill so I pulled on my fleece hat and draped my blanket over my shoulders. The peepers were singing loudly in the maple swamp and I strained to hear the calls of other frog species amid the din. I thought I heard a few different calls, but didn’t know any of them well enough to give them names. A robin chuckled in the swamp and a dove cooed gently down at the other end of the field. A cardinal stopped by to give a few chips before heading off to his roost. I was waiting for my vernal virtuoso.

Sunset was at about 7:20 and by 7:30 I could see my own tea-warmed breath in the air. It was getting late and I was starting to worry about biking home in the dark. I wondered if it might be too cold, but the peepers reassured me. At 7:35 I heard the first call from the shelter of a big mass of forsythia up the hill behind me. My maestro was warming up. The calling was followed in a few minutes by a twittering sound as the bird flew behind me and circled the perimeter of the field, spiraling upward. I watched his dark silhouette against the lighter sky until he rose out of sight as if in slow motion. A period of silence was followed by what I can only describe as a random chirping similar to the sound that comes from one of those little wooden Audubon bird calls that is held between the thumb and forefinger while twisting the metal thumbscrew with the other hand. A couple of minutes later, the ground calls – known as peents – began again and the entire performance was repeated.

The woodcock is a funny little bird. With his long beak that is used to probe the mud for earthworms, he looks like a shore bird that took an evolutionary wrong turn to wind up in the uplands. The timberdoodle has a long history as a game bird and as a target for pot hunters. This heritage may contribute to the fascination many have for this rich brown bird with big eyes and bigger feet that make me think of E.T. His ground call is a funny little squeak that Julie Zickefoose might say sounds like an accident, but his song as he falls from the sky is almost other-worldly.

The show was just starting but I had to go and I heard more peents behind me as I pushed my bike down the old gravel road. The upturned crescent of the moon did little to light the way. When I got to the pavement I turned on my blinking red taillight and plunged down the hill into the deepening darkness. A lone car passed and I chased it down the steepest part of the hill at about 30 miles an hour letting his headlights light the way. As the road flattened out, I could no longer keep up, so I pedaled happily from one pool of streetlamp light to the next.

Siren Song

May 1st has long been one of my favorite days of the year. Spring is blooming in all its richness and bird migration is starting to peak. I observed the arrival of this special month by playing hooky again for an hour of breakfast and coffee on Moose Hill on Tuesday and Friday mornings this week. By leaving home a little early and spending the time I would otherwise use reading the paper or generally procrastinating, I can get an hour in the woods and still get my work done.

I drove down the hill from the town center and passed the train depot. I saw the suits rushing to the station, heading to work in Boston. There are days I wish I could do that, but these days were not among them. The sky was clear and a bright sun was warming the cool air. I knew the woods held birds I had not seen in months and I wanted to be there to great them. I was glad that the demands of clocks and offices were largely irrelevant to me.

I parked in the sanctuary lot and started walking toward Moose Hill. I was welcomed by the chipping sparrows that are always trilling along the street and the red bellied woodpecker that seems to have a territory right near the beginning of the Summit Trail. Following my usual modus operandi, I hiked to one of the trails around the base of Moose Hill and walked until I spotted some inviting, sun-warmed rocks up the hill. I then climbed up, found a comfortable spot with a view and sat down to survey the surroundings.

I didn’t see many birds as I moved along the trail. The tree buds were just opening, so visibility to the treetops was excellent. Although the sky was clear, I thought perhaps strong breezes were keeping the birds down. On Tuesday, as if to confirm my hypothesis, I saw birds moving low in the forest just as I sat down in my selected spot. The first was a bright yellow warbler with brown streaks on its sides, a neat chestnut cap and a funny habit of pumping its tail rather like a hermit thrush. I carry my old Peterson guide on days like this when I know I will likely see birds I don’t know well. The guide told me this was a palm warbler and they are known for staying near the ground, so this fellow wasn’t doing anything unusual to support my theory about the wind keeping small birds out of the treetops. I looked at the checklist in the front of the book and saw that I had marked this bird off as seen, but that may have been 30 years ago, so this was almost as good as a life bird to me.

Within minutes, a black and white warbler came by. I didn’t need a book to ID this little guy who carries his name in his colors. Other than the usual chickadees, titmice and chipmunks, I didn’t see much else on Tuesday. The steady rush of the wind in the tree branches made it difficult to hear the subtle bird calls and songs, but I was content to be alone and watch how the bright sun dappled the forest floor with clear light.

Friday was much like Tuesday. The woods were quieter than I might have expected on a clear day in early May. I reflected on the wonderful, if troubling, NPR radio program on Tom Ashbrook’s Onpoint Radio. (See sidebar.) They discussed the myriad threats facing migrating birds these days from the destruction of tropical rain forests, to development on the Gulf Coast, to communications towers, to pesticides. Perhaps it was this in this momentary low mood that I reminded myself that May 4^th was the day that America killed some of it own.

It would be very unlike Moose Hill to fail to offer up some treat for the senses and, in time, as I sat quietly I began to hear subtle sounds. I heard, and then saw, first a small group of myrtle warblers with their funny habit of dropping from on tree branch to the other. I saw another palm warbler and it was good to see this bird two visits in a row to reinforce my familiarity with it.

As I listened for new birds, I heard a new call just up the hill. It was a “teach-teach-teach” much like and ovenbird, but not quite. It was coming from behind some pines just over a ridge. I walk that way, pausing to listen. I heard the call again, this time just a little further up the hill, still beyond sight. This went on for a while longer with the bird calling but seemingly moving away just as I approached.

I began to imagine myself following this tempting spirit deeper and deeper into the wild until I was lost. I fantasized about discovering beautiful stands of virgin forest with sun-lit mossy openings where colorful birds warbled gentle songs. Realizing I could never find a better place to rest, I set down my pack, wrote a final page in my journal and dozed off into eternal sleep.

Somewhere about that time, my cell phone went off. As with the mylar balloons I picked up from the forest floor, even here the outside world finds a way to intrude. Even though I have no boss and no office to go to, I have responsibilities and work to do, but I am not afraid to set them aside for a few minutes of peace and quiet. There are those who would call me lazy. I prefer to think of myself as tremendously ambitions in my quest for balance.

I recently talked to a young man who is astonishingly successful in the world of money. His family is falling apart. When I suggested that with all the money he had, surely he could spend more time at home. He said he needed to stay productive. Perhaps the balance sheets he reads so well lack some important data altogether. I spoke with another man who commutes in a car for up to two hours each way to sit in an office and profit from those losing everything in the mortgage crisis. In both our natural world and our own lives, all too often we ignore the true cost of things. How much is a happy wife worth? What price tag goes on a warbler’s song? As Ansel Adams said, some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Some people are driven to succeed. Some march to a different drummer. Others hear a siren song. Some are called to the world of clocks, money, productivity and things. Others hear a different tune and are called to walk in the woods on a beautiful spring morning. We live in a world of opportunity, freedom and choices. I choose to spend an hour sitting quietly in the forest thinking about the value of the quest for serenity.