Gifts of a Dirt Road

 Dean's Fork is a touchstone for me. It calls to me, never louder than in June, when birds are breeding, and October, when leaves are coloring. I've found things down there, where I can get no cell reception; where my phone's just a camera and occasionally a bird call player and nothing more. I find things, and I find myself, too.

Here in southeast Ohio, rose-breasted grosbeaks have always been one of those inestimable gifts of migration time. You look out your kitchen window of a fine early May morning, and there's this whazzat!? in the birches.

Your heart pounds and you wait for that full frontal BAM of carmine-rose to hit you smack between the eyes. It's usually a male, maybe one in five is a female. That's fine. We'll take males.

 And they hang around the feeders for WEEKS and every year you ask them sweetly if they might be able to stay, maybe bring a girlfriend around, show her the place. What's so great about northeast Ohio that we haven't got for you down here in the rolly hilly part? I'll keep you in sunflower and peanuts. Please stay. You're so decorative, your song is so sweet, a rich wavering warble, like a robin who's had voice lessons and is practicing breath control.

Every year I take ugly pictures of them on our feeders, knowing they're pretty much useless, but helpless in the particolored birds' thrall.

So imagine my delight when I heard a rose-breasted grosbeak singing through the thick chorus on my beloved Dean's Fork early on the morning of June 10. It was a day when Chet was still feeling logy, and I went out alone, my heart heavy but also strangely light, knowing I needed to be selfish, to put some miles on my chassis after throttling it back for several weeks. That rich song, ringing out practically in my backyard, well after migration; knowing that means the birds are on territory: for the alert birdwatcher, it doesn't get any better than that. And traversing my favorite road's three-mile length that day, I located three more singing males, one following a female around as if prospecting for nest sites or nesting material.

This landscape, with this light, and a singing rose-breast in it. By its presence, the bird sonically and spiritually lighting the whole place up. Like looking out over the Lamar Valley at Yellowstone, and knowing there are wolves there. It changes the place. It changes you. 

Like looking in the widening crack in our back patio, and seeing Mr. and Mrs. Fak lying there, placid, waiting for another dratted chipmunk to scurry past. Take them. Take them all. Everywhere I plant, they dig. Everything I nurture, they upend.

We visit the Faks several times a day, wish them well. They're fat with cicadas this year. You don't need venom for cicadas. You just gulp them down.

Living with copperheads: it isn't so hard, when there aren't so many.

I bring friends to Dean's Fork. It's the best thing I can show them. This is Jim Coe, plein air oil painter, diggin' the scene. Rose-breasts are no big deal for this Hannacroix NY boy, but Acadian flycatchers, Kentucky and cerulean, yellow-throated and worm-eating warblers are, so we found him some of those.

Here it is. It's the best place I can show you. If you want to know what I've been up to since we last saw each other, well, this three-mile dirt road is pretty much it. Well, that and a book on baby birds.

Painted fish fly wings, scattered by a bird.

Red efts on the move, nearing adulthood, nearing their final homes, wherever they may be. When they find the right body of water, they'll dive in; their thick and rough skin will thin, and they'll become denizens of the water again. And then we'll call them red-spotted newts.

The neatly nested halves of a robin eggshell, carried from the nest by a parent. The chick may have pushed them together in hatching, or the parent may have nested them for carrying, but either way, a thing of joy. The neatly pinked edges and remnant blood vessels say this was a successful hatching. Often you can find the chick's first yellowish dropping in the eggshell, too!

Beauty and the beast: summer azure drinking ichor from a smashed American toad.

A wolf spider carries her seething young on her back, something I always love to see.

Go in peace, good mama.

I see a wood thrush fly across my path, carrying an enormous wad of nesting material: dead leaves and trailing blonde grass. How odd to see one building a nest on June 10; they should be incubating or even feeding chicks by now. And not 50' further on, I find the work of a jay: a wood thrush egg, pierced and emptied. And I realize that she is ripping apart the nest she'd made, to build it elsewhere, away from sharp dark eyes. She's starting over.

Yes, it's the same color as a robin's egg, but a third smaller. It's good to know these things.  If I didn't know the color and size of a wood thrush's egg, I wouldn't be able to piece together the story. If I didn't know the song of a rose-breasted grosbeak, I wouldn't know they're here. If I didn't know when red efts go from orange to army-green, I wouldn't know why they're walking.

The only way to know these things is to get yourself out, to wonder, and put together a million tiny pieces into a bigger picture. And then you realize that there's this great big show going on all around you. Then it calls to you and you have to answer. Then, and all along, come the gifts.

Because you may wonder: The strong, lusty, liquid warble in the foreground is a rose-breasted grosbeak. The insistent chip chip chip chip chip is a chipmunk. The sudden pit-SEEK! and higher squeaky notes are an Acadian flycatcher. The burry hurried warble is a scarlet tanager. A cardinal sings his purty purty purty, followed by a wood thrush in song, then giving his hard glassy wit wit wit! alarm call. Finally, an American redstart's sis-sis-swew!, and a scarlet tanager again, the rosebreast singing over it all. It's a book, it's a movie, it's a community, and paying attention to it is the thing to do when you're in the woods.

Fox Squirrel Rescue

I was running along a high ridge when I heard a vocalization that was unfamiliar to me. It was a piercing, mournful whistle, insistent and regular.

When I hear a birdlike call that I've never heard, there are two possibilities.

Possibility One is that it's a bird with which I'm not familiar. Because I bird by ear,  and have made it a point to learn firsthand every peep, burp and giggle of every bird that lives around here in this rumply corner of Ohio since 1992, that can only mean that it's a rare vagrant.

 On April 21, 2014,  I heard a mellow dove call, "who cooks for you?" coming from the orchard. And by the time I had run inside to grab the binocs and long lens, held up my iPhone and made a recording of it, I knew it was a white-winged dove, strayed here from the American Southwest. Or somewhere. I got reasonably unequivocal photos, considering the bird was backlit, and several great voice recordings to boot. Something like Ohio's fifth state record of the species. All from hearing an unfamiliar bird call. It ain't braggin' if you can back it up.

Possibility Two is that it's not a bird. This is actually more likely than that it's a bird I'm not familiar with. There was need in the call. Distress. I climbed the cow pasture gate and headed toward the sound. No way was I going to go home without figuring this out, and helping whatever needed help.

In the photo below, I ended up standing under the tree just right of center, the one with the dark spot in its crown. The cowpasture hill is so steep the cattle have cut parallel tracks in it, and I actually had to walk down it stepping sideways, lest I pitch forward and roll the rest of the way. Yes, we clear impossible slopes in Washington County, slopes that should by all rights be in forest, not "pasture." But hey. It's not a housing development, and there are bluebirds and meadowlarks. I'll take it.

I still didn't know what the sound was, but I had decided that despite the high, birdlike tone,  the metronome-like regularity of the call indicated that it was a mammal. By the time I got close to the source, I had narrowed it down to squirrel. A crying baby squirrel. The season was right.

Now you can see the dark nest in the  deciduous tree to the right of the pine patch, with a green pine at its base. These photos taken after the fact. I hadn't seen the nest yet, when I was trying to home in on the strange peeping.

I entered the woods and heard two crying at once. Now I knew it had to be babies. 

One voice was coming from the forest floor, the other from high in a tree. From a stick and leaf nest, draped with blonde inner bark strips. 

Just then, before my unbelieving eyes, a tiny animal launched itself into space and crash-landed atop a branch on the forest floor. Oh no! But what were the chances I'd be there at that exact moment?? There is an answer to that question, but I wouldn't realize it for another day.

It was the most beautiful baby fox squirrel I had ever seen. The first, actually. And he was cold, shivering, starving. Something must have happened to his mother. 

I searched quickly through the forest litter and found his sibling, who must have launched earlier, and had been crying intermittently the whole time. It was weaker, smaller.

From carefree and headed home from a 4.7 mile run, to suddenly and completely responsible for two precious and beautiful lives.

 Welcome to another installment of "Being Zick." 

A little bright red blood bubbled at the bigger male's nose. He was the one who'd taken the leap to land at my feet. 

That wasn't good. It spoke of internal injuries. He'd fallen at least 40 feet. 

All this time, Chet Baker had been with me, but hanging well back. He was intrigued by the high, peeping distress calls of the squirrels, but he would not come any closer than 50' while I searched the ground for them.

Finally, with a lot of coaxing, he came to me and sniffed shyly at the babies. 

He was struggling to contain his avidity.

Everything in his demeanor read disbelief. That I had two squirrels, his dream prey, in my hands. That now, since they were babies and in my hands, there was no way he would ever be allowed to grab them and give them a quick shake, as he does in his dreams. He's half rat terrier, after all. Fast and very skilled at dispatching small mammals. I could read his thoughts. RATS! Rats rats rats rats rats. She got to 'em first.

But remember--he had stayed absolutely clear of the area. He was actually hiding behind a multiflora bush as I searched for the squirrels!

At the mature age of ten, Chet Baker knows this about himself. He reminded me of a recovering alcoholic at a Christmas party, standing as far away from the bar as he can get. 

Look up "Good Dog" in the dictionary. There will be a picture of Chet Baker, Boston Terrier.

Now, what to do? My mind went into overdrive. I tucked the squirrels up under my chin, ignoring the fleas that riffled through their fur, and headed for the house, about a mile distant. By the time I got there, I'd have a plan. 

To Be Continued...

The Best Part of the Day

They often say it's the best part of the day. Whoever "they" are, I agree.

Dawn is the best. I feel like I'm stealing away when I wake up at 4:45, put on my shoes and go out into the fields. I go out to disappear into the light and the air, fragrant with the last of the honeysuckle and the first of the milkweed.

Indigo buntings sing very early. This male perched on a bluebird box along the driveway, singing his heart out in the darkness. Inside the box, a bluebird may be laying her third pale blue egg. So much blue. I stood and listened as long as he sang. 

Ground fog pours over the hayfield and into the road. I'm shivering a little this morning, a nice change from sweating.

The mackerel sky speaks of rain before this time tomorrow. There's been a lot of rain. I love seeing the wildflowers burgeon and grow huge. I almost don't recognize them, so lush they're growing.

It isn't hard to spot a striped skunk doodling along, digging pits in the haymeadow near the county road. Chet sees it too. He hangs near me, not giving chase. I think this dog's training is close to done. Only two days ago, he spotted three wild turkeys strolling on one of our favorite lanes, and didn't chase them, either. 

It is a beautiful thing to have a dog with judgement, who doesn't need a leash or even a word any more.

For a Boston terrier, such restraint is rare. They are half terrier, after all. My favorite part is that in both cases, I didn't have to say a word to him. He just knows that good dogs don't chase turkeys or skunks, no matter how alluring they may be. 

We move up on the skunk to try to get a photo with my iPhone. Chet sticks right by my side. He's been sprayed twicet. He knows. 

The skunk gets wind of us and does a meerkat act. It is very cute. Then it ambles over to a telephone pole and digs and digs. From the way it's digging and then pouncing, I suspect it has found  a nest of baby rabbits. But I'm not about to go investigate.  That's his bidness, and I'm not interested in bathing in baking soda and white vinegar today. We just watch. 

Here's the skunk, the dark spot at the base of the telephone pole, and Chet, watching without having to be held back. What a good boy. 

We leave him there, digging. And when we come back three hours later I go investigate and sure enough, there's a bunch of soft grass pulled out of a hole. He had found a nest of baby rabbits. They must've been small for him to gobble them up so cleanly. There are so many rabbits this year, and some of them are born to die. That's part of being a rabbit. 

 Mist hangs in the holler over Carl's house. 

We run down the dip and up onto the ridgetop, and it's so beautiful I can hardly believe that everyone else is asleep. The milkweed is about to burst into bloom. It's untouched. I haven't seen a monarch yet. I will wait, and so will the milkweed.

The scene is so perfect in the diffuse morning light it reminds me of a diorama painted by Frances Lee Jacques. But it's real, and I'm in it, and I'm grateful to be there. I couldn't do everything I have to do; I couldn't be who I need to be and take care of the people I care for without starting my mornings like this. Everyone has things that get them through their days. I wonder what the world would be like if we all got up in the dark and took three hours to dwell in, to move through such grace. I find it transformative. 

A Facebook friend whose updates often make me snort wrote this:

"I run. I run until I don't want to stab people. Sometimes I run a long time."

I'd never say that. But I'm glad I have a friend who would.

I'm also glad to have this friend, this solid dark polished ebony chunk of love. There's something to be said for being able to get a kiss whenever you need one, even if it's only from a dog. He's quite a dog.

The landscape looks to me like a little farm set, and I feel like a child again, creating perfect scene after perfect scene, lining up the white plastic fencing, the barns and the tiny brown and white cattle. This world is in order. I have only to move around to frame and appreciate its exquisite symmetry. 

Today I record birds, as I do every time I go out, on a little folded bit of paper. Today I hear or see 63 species in three hours, which feels darn good to me for late June. I say that because everything I'm logging now is likely to be staying around to breed. This is the second run in a row where I record rose-breasted grosbeak, two different males  a couple of miles apart. I'm very excited about that. I've never had June records of RBGR. Only one July record in 22 years. I also log five singing yellow-throated warblers and two worm-eating warblers, in addition to ovenbirds, Kentucky warbler, American redstart, yellow, blue-winged, and black and white warblers. Life is good.

Recording the birds I hear every morning has become a comfort thing for me, like doing a crossword puzzle or reading the newspaper. I am reading the newspaper, the news that means something to me.
For those who can read bander's code (or my bad approximation of it), here's June 22's list.

COYE
NOCA
EATO
EABL
FISP
INBU
WEVI
MODO
CHSP
WOTH
AMCR
BLUW
HOWA
REVI
BGGN
YBCH
BASW
YTVI
NOMO
SOSP
YSFL
PIWO
RBWO
WBNU
RWBB
BHCO
TUTI
AMRO
OROR
EAKI
DOWO
EUST
TRSW
GRCA
YEWA
CEDW
CACH
OVEN
EWPE
BAOR
BAWW
TUVU
AMGO
SCTA
HOFI
EAME
RTHA
BRTH
RBGR
HOSP
RTHU
HAWO
EAPH
YTWA
WBNU
AMRE
KEWA
WEWA
BHCO
ACFL
RSHA
YBCU
GCFL