Every bird in the county decided to drop in this morning. The ducks were falling out of the sky into the pond, a dozen at a time. The geese glide down with wings and landing gear set like graceful B-52's in formation. Blue jays are chortling to share the sunflower seeds and corn on the porch in the blue steel feeder Clark welded out of scrap iron . (This feeder is not going to blow off in the raging Wyoming winds) The female downey woodpecker is jack hammering on the tree by the porch when not hanging upside down on the suet cage. The whole scene is blanketed with thousands of speckled starlings, swarming to settle occasionally on the fence, in the trees, and in the grass. The landscape is alive with the screeching cacophony of white speckles on blue/green/black irridescence. To fill in the remaining spaces are a few black throated sparrows who just stopped by to see what all the commotion was about.
Then SILENCE
The air becomes a canvas for the Escher-like patterning of the en-mass departure.




Text © 2004 Mona E. Dunn