1.
How my back was broken for the untrue —
the closed hip —
the torrent that was confined there.
The damage,
permanent.
2.
How it still takes work
to keep it from being obvious.
Who would dive into that wreckage?
3.
How the wild shadow witched me.
How the bluebird soothed
and courted me.
How this landscape was my only true love.
… . …
During the fall migration, on these cool but sunny, warming sorts of fall mornings (from 49 to 60 degrees F while I walked today), I come across a lot of mixed flocks of birds.
Robins and redwing blackbirds.
Cedar waxwings and purple finches.
And 3 different flocks of bluebirds mixed with goldfinches, 2 of them with some field sparrows, too.
Most of these are year-round residents.
Robins can be found in large flocks along small wooded waterways in the deep winter, usually on days when the temperature gets close to or above 30 degrees F.
Goldfinches can be found taking cover in the woody edges on cold days and looking for seeds among the prairie plants on warmer days in winter. They sometimes even pass through the backyard in the less frigid winters. You have to plant native things that they like to eat. Asters. Sunflowers. Coneflower. Black-eyed Susans.
There’s a value in attempting to re-create continuous habitat. Let’s do that.
Bluebirds can be found on the coldest winter mornings, if the sun is shining, quietly singing a single note at the top of a tree. They like the woody edges.
Filmore, the bird guy who long ago moved — to Arkansas? to Oklahoma? — told me that in winter, you could look in the nesting boxes and find sometimes a dozen bluebirds all nestled together.
In the last flock of bluebirds I saw this morning, I counted more than two dozen (along with a dozen or so goldfinches). One of the largest flocks of bluebirds I’ve ever seen.
Perhaps it was a successful year for them.
There were some loners this morning too, of course. A hermit thrush singing its heart out at the inlet, the evaporating fog over the cattails like smoke.
Saw a warbler of some sort. Blue-winged warbler, I’d say.
Later I saw a kestrel. It frightened a whole flock of goldfinches my way. They’re almost completely changed from yellow now.
Seeing the diversity of species in the relatively small acreage of the Marsh (without really trying! I forgot my binoculars today) makes me wonder how it would have been 30 years ago. Before we lost 3 billion birds. (https://www.audubon.org/news/north-america-has-lost-more-1-4-birds-last-50-years-new-study-says)
looking for roots 