Wet, dew covered grass muffled the sound of my footsteps as I walked down the wide mowed path toward the old beaver pond. Young brown rabbits, plentiful this summer, nibbled on green grass and scampered away at my approach.  Ahead I saw the full rounded form of trees rising above the early morning mist. There was something evocative about the shapes of the trees in full summer growth, something compelling about the form of branch upon branch, leaf upon leaf, rich rounded contours repeating again and again and again. I felt an uplifting, inspiring sense of beauty and at the same time a settled feeling flowing from shoulders to feet to earth.

Alongside the path, the wildflowers of midsummer were in full bloom; flat, white, dainty umbrellas of Queen Anne’s lace, bright-white clusters of lacy-leafed yarrow, white and yellow daisies, yellow and brown black-eyed susans, and dusty-rose milkweed clusters atop tall stems that I knew from childhood would, if broken, exude a creamy white sap. Lower down in this mid-July nature bouquet grew sprigs of white and yellow daisy fleabane, and lower yet, little yellow bells of birdfoot trefoil.

I arrived at the pond at 5:37, two minutes before sunrise. I set up my camp chair, settled in, pulled out my notebook, and began the process of looking and listening, of allowing sensory awareness to guide my experience.

Thick morning mist floated along the valley enveloping me in a world of gray. It would be a while before the sun would ascend high enough to dissolve the mist and reveal the full palette of summer colors.

Two years ago the pond had been large and deep and a good home for a family of beavers. But a two-day deluge wrought by the remnants of a hurricane ruptured the dam and drained the pond. Now, a little unnamed creek wove through a meadow of grasses and weeds that flourished upon mud flats where water had once stood.

The morning bird chorus was in full swing. I heard with songs and calls overlapping, rising and falling, coming and going.   I listened intently trying to discern the different songs, to find out who was in the neighborhood and what they were up to. First, I focused on the familiar songs, the cooing of mourning doves, the sing-song of a robin, the “whoit, whoit, whoit” whistles of a cardinal, the aria of a song sparrow, the cries of blue jays, the cawing of crows, the “chack, chack” of red-winged blackbirds, the slow rolling “witchety, witchety, witchety” of a yellowthroat, and a veery’s ethereal, spiraling, descending, flute-like “vreer, vreer, vreer” song.

I willed my ears to hear into and behind the familiar songs for anything additional. Soon, I detected the wheezy, burry “RITZbew” of a willow flycatcher. Ah, flycatchers, I thought, a family of seldom seen solitary birds usually identified by their calls. And this male flycatcher was right in his favored element, low brushy vegetation in a wet area where he could perch on a branch, dart out, and snatch insects from the air.

Then I heard a slow steady bell-like trill which I knew was the song of a swamp sparrow, another bird that likes to live in marshes and near ponds. Nearby, another swamp sparrow trilled, this time with a loud clear distinct pair of introductory notes before launching into its trill. Individual variation on a standard theme was one of the reasons that time spent sitting outside and listening is so important and so rewarding. Jon Young, the author of What the Robin Knows, the book that inspired my sit spot sessions, calls it “dirt time, an aptly descriptive phrase for nature learning.

A small bird flew out of the mist and landed on a bare branch of a long ago fallen dead tree. Binoculars up, focus adjusted and I had a clear view of my swamp sparrow friend. It was a male with a rufous crown, wings and tail, olive shaded face and neck, compact triangular seed crunching beak, and a bluish-gray breast. He hopped along the branch, stopped, reared back his head and belted out his chime-chime-trill version of the swamp sparrow song.

I recalled one of the lecturers in the spring field ornithology course I took at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology saying that once he saw a bird singing its song, then it was locked in his memory forever. I understood this now as I watched the swamp sparrow rear back like a tiny opera singer and belt out his musical trill again and again.

The sparrow edged to the tip of a branch close to stalks of tall field grass topped with heads of brown seeds, heads that looked like wheat ready for the harvest. The bird stretched his head forward and deftly plucked seeds from the ripe grass. I knew sparrows ate seeds, but here was one showing me how they did it. Transfixed, I watched as it reached out and ate more seeds, hopped to another branch near more ripe stems, and ate more seeds.

I had heard swamp sparrow sing before and recognized their trill when I was in their habitat, but had never seen one. Now I had heard two unique swamp sparrow songs and had a full view of one singing and then feeding.  I thought perhaps I had just been inducted into the “Swamp Sparrow Club.”

Young spoke about selective membership in bird clubs in a lecture on bird language. He explained how certain birds just kept their distance. You knew they were there, you heard their song, but you never saw them. And then suddenly they revealed themselves. He thought it happened when he had changed, when he had opened up in some way, when the bird recognized that he was ready. I had no idea of what might have changed within me, but I was grateful for the experience.

The slowly rising sun pierced the mist, illuminated my surroundings, and revealed the colors around me. Gazing ahead at the grasses and weeds I saw shades of green; blue-green, light-green, dark-green, forest-green, yellow-green, and plain old Crayola crayon green. I noticed grasses of different heights and shapes with different leaves and tops; lacy plumes, small compact plumes, large seed heads, and small seed heads. Most of the grasses were green, but a few had reached maturity and turned brown.

Looking into the angled sunlight I saw a veritable zoo of insects flying through the air, insects of all sizes and shapes; big, small, brown, white, tan, hovering, darting, flying, and even a few mosquitoes and deer flies flying around my arms and neck, looking for a spot to land to take a bite. The uncountable insects brought the insect hunters, the spiders. Everywhere I looked, I saw white webs dipped in morning dew; thick webs, long slender strand webs, patterned webs, partial webs, low webs.

The riotous chorus of overlapping morning bird songs faded slowly away and was replaced by a sequence of separate songs. I heard a few new songs; the electric static-like buzz of a kingbird, the squawk of a great blue heron, the high-pitched barely audible “sreeeee, sreeeee” of cedar waxwings, the rapid fire “ke, ke, ke, ke” chatter of a kingfisher, and, one of my summer favorites, the lilting musical “per-chik-o-ree’ of goldfinches in flight.

The birds seemed to be flying more, on the move as full daylight arrived. A pair of wood ducks flew along the stream with steady strong wing strokes. A trio of jet black crows flapped lazily across a light blue sky. Robins flew steadily, purposefully, directly from tree to tree. A tiny house wren darted into a bush. A pair of goldfinches lifted and dipped through the air. And then there were the ballerinas of the sky, a quintet of barn swallows, cinnamon-throated, blue-black shoulders, long forked tail, and swept-back slender wings. I watched them swoop and swirl, dodge and dart, lift and drop, and pivot on a penny as if they owned the air, as if they were designed to defy gravity

A glance at my watch revealed that my designated observation hour was up. I was stunned. It had been the fastest sit spot hour ever. And although I was hungry and yearning for a hot, strong cup of coffee, I wasn’t ready to head home yet. I packed up, shouldered my gear, and headed down a narrow path that ran alongside the creek through scrub brush, under fragrant white pines, and alongside stands of poplar. It was barely 7 o’clock, but the air was already warm, humid and heavy, perfect summer weather for plants to grow. I began to sweat in my long-sleeved shirt.

Spider web strands stretched across the path. I broke through them like a runner crossing a finish line. Then I realized I had walked down this same path last night at sundown. The spiders had worked overnight to restring their webs.

I spotted a tall wild blueberry bush offering a few ripe berries. I picked three, popped them into my mouth, and chewed slowly. The taste wasn’t fruit forward and sugary like store-bought berries, but light, refreshing, tart-sweet, a taste that lingered in my mouth.

Further along I spied the first ripe blackberries of the year, plucked two, and ate them while visions of homemade blackberry jam smeared on toast on a snowy winter morning came to mind.

Then I found a wild raspberry bush loaded with ripe red fruit. It had been a good summer for raspberries, the right amount and right sequence of sun and rain. I searched out the deepest red berries, reached in, grabbed gently, and when the berry pulled easily away from the stem, I knew it was just-right ripe. The taste was pure essence of raspberry, light bright sweetness with a deep rich flavor.

                                   

A robin flapped out of the back side of the raspberry patch. Nearby, on the trail, stood a pile of fresh bear scat peppered with shreds of red fruit fragments and light brown berry seeds. It seemed that I might have to share this bounty of wild berries.

Fortified by my snack, I continued down the path. Coming around a turn I was surprised to see two wildflowers of late summer already in bloom; a spray of butter-yellow goldenrod and several clusters of bright pink Joe-Pye weed. On this hot sunny morning when it was easy to imagine that summer would go on forever, here were tangible signs that the season was rushing forward. Soon, the goldenrods, harbingers of autumn, would cover the fields with a blanket of golden-yellow.

 

This sit spot session took place on 7/16/2018.