Frost coated grass crunched under my boots as I strode through the back yard heading to the beaver pond. In the dim predawn light dark shapes moved by the compost bin; deer feeding on the grass, maybe stretching into the bin to snatch bits of discarded lettuce and fruit peels. As I came closer I heard their hooves click as they clattered over the old flagstone wall and disappeared in the woods.

Bands of red and orange inched above the southern horizon, a preview of the coming sunrise. Above the dark silhouette of an ash tree, a morning star shone, a last spot of light lingering in the fading darkness, perhaps a positive omen for my coming sit spot session.

Stepping through a gap in the stone wall, I walked down the icy, slushy, muddy path that wound through the woods. Still a half hour before sunrise, but already the first bird calls of the morning greeted me. A pair of cardinals, high in trees along the path called tik, tik, tik, back and forth, their morning greeting and reassurance calls to each other. Just ahead, a Carolina wren, a tiny bird with a big voice, belted out its clarion tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle song. In the distance, two crows cawed back and forth, caw, caw, caw, each with a slightly different tone and cadence.

Squishing around and through the muddy patches on the trail, I left the woods and came to the wide open path that led down a long slope to the beaver pond. Grassy fields, second growth brush, and occasional trees grew along both sides of the path. Halfway down I paused to take in the widening band of interwoven sunrise colors: bright red, pomegranate, burnt orange, luminous pink, and fire yellow.

I attempted to take a picture with both my IPhone and my point and shoot Canon, but neither camera could capture the intensity and variety of the colors. Some panoramas, some moments of beauty, simply can’t be captured by camera. These moments, I reflected, must be enjoyed by the eyes and the heart, and then stored in memory as images wrapped in gratitude.

Resuming my walk, I looked at the trees in and beyond the fields; a huge locust with spiky branches jutting into a pale sky, a feathery birch swaying in the light wind, the dark clumpy form of a white pine. In the soft half-light, I found myself viewing the trees through subjective lenses. Technically, they were leafless and dormant, but to me they appeared vibrant and alive. They looked like living friends acknowledging, accepting, welcoming, even encouraging my presence.

I set up my camp stool at the edge of the beaver pond, sat down, and took out my sit spot notebook. I had come with a purpose. Although it was January, the time for thick ice to cover the pond, for deep frost to harden the ground, for skiers and snowshoers to take to the woods, and for ice fishermen to huddle over their tip-ups, this year was strangely different. Persistent warm temperatures and periodic rains had melted the ice and turned the forest paths to muddy mini trenches. I wanted to see first-hand how these unusual conditions affected life at the beaver pond.

Settling into stillness, I began to absorb sensory impressions of my setting. A light but steady southwest wind blew against my back, chilled my neck and swayed and whooshed the tan field grasses around me. Water gurgled softly, steadily, soothingly over the partially rebuilt beaver dam. The big willow just across the water, a huge mass of uncountable stretching interwoven branches, seemed to glow with vitality in the predawn light. From the field across the pond I heard soft tsee, tsee, tsee companion calls, most likely tree sparrows. Above a distant hayfield I traced the flight of two crows, flapping, lifting, flying, cawing.

Then, the first sound of something different and unexpected, drake mallards voicing their nasal veep, veep, veep calls. I brought up my binoculars, scanned the far edge of the pond where the creek channel flowed and spotted the ducks, a convoy of green headed drakes and brown plumaged hens partially hidden by clumps of grass. They paddled slowly upstream, pausing to dip and feed. Never had I seen mallards on the pond in January, but they had found the open water, and flown into take advantage of what for them was ideal habitat.

I heard the loud, nasal whi, whi, whi, whi, whi song of a white-breasted nuthatch. This was winter birding I told myself; fewer birds and fewer calls and songs, but when you heard or spotted a winter resident it was all the sweeter. I listened and heard more calls; this time sweet chimp, chimp, chimp calls, song sparrows. One flew fly up to the branch of a bush, paused, and then flitted down to the grass. Song sparrows like the habitat near open water. Here was another bird adapting to and taking advantage of the ice free pond.

The wind picked up, 8-10 miles an hour now, with stronger gusts, wind that carried the sounds of morning traffic from the highway a good half mile distant. Cars accelerated and tires whined on the asphalt as tense drivers hurried to work. Diesel trucks roared and strained up the steep hill. Yet at the same time I was surrounded by a symphony of nature sounds; grass swooshing, water gurgling, birds calling and singing.

I felt caught between these two worlds of sound. The traffic noises grated. I felt the impact on my body and nervous system; muscles bracing, autonomic nervous system activating—heart rate up, stomach tightening, breath shorter, cortisol squirting into the blood stream. Simultaneously the sounds of nature and the sight of gently swaying grasses created an opposite soothing effect—heart slowing, muscles loosening, breath deepening, senses opening.

I felt myself whipsawed back and forth between these two states. Annoyance at the traffic noise grew as yet another sound intruded, the whiny-roar of an airliner high above. I wondered if I could ever find a sit spot free from sound pollution, free from the noise of traffic and airplanes.

I glanced up. A flock of mallards dropped out of the dawn sky aiming for the open water of the pond; wings set, swerving and swaying like aerial ballerinas, feet out, ready to splash down. It was a beautiful and breathtaking sight, one that might be seen in an evocative nature water color or as an illustration adorning the cover of Field and Stream magazine.

At the last moment they spotted me, flared off, and circled toward the back beaver pond. The mallards already on the pond responded to their flying brethren and splashed into flight. I counted eight ducks in each flock. Amazing I thought. In the few days since the ice had dissolved at least sixteen mallards got the word on this patch of fine puddle duck habitat.

As the ducks flew into the distance I thought that their conversation about the open water might be quite different from my internal dialogue. I could picture the ducks quacking back and forth about this splendid opportunity to feed and rest on a quiet, shallow little pond. They might have–in an opportunistic and adaptable state of mind–speculated that if the open water held they could forgo the challenges and dangers of a southward migration.

For me the open water created a state of unease. Others had echoed this unease saying that it just didn’t feel like real winter. Climate change suddenly seemed tangible. The tiny wind-blown ripples on the open water perhaps signaled deeper waves of environmental change. My unease shifted toward sadness and then regret at the prospect of nature disrupted, at the thought of humans as poor custodians of the environment.

I was pulled from my reverie by the raucous cawing of crows. Far over a field three crows swirled and dove midair. They flew closer. Two crows now, one diving at the other. Then a solitary dark shape broke free and flew toward me. A crow? No, too big. It flapped and glided closer, then landed in the big willow across the pond. I saw a buff and brownish breast and a broad tail. It was a red-tailed hawk. I glanced down to grasp my binoculars and in the moment my eyes were averted the hawk took off, flew low and fast over the field, and disappeared.

The tree sparrows and song sparrows in the bushes had seen the hawk too and I heard their urgent alarm calls. What an impact this winged predator had on the environment. The hawk had been harassed by the crows and spotted and announced by the sparrows. Yet I knew that sometime during the day ahead that the hawk would find its quiet, stealthy, still space and would strike with sudden and sure success.

The sun, twenty minutes after official sunrise, lifted slowly and steadily above the tree lined ridge to the southeast. If felt as if a switch clicked. Full daylight spread across the land. I felt myself click into a fully day-awake state. The trees that had looked so mystical and alive in the predawn light now appeared more objective; just oaks and birch and ash and willows, profiles that could be seen in any field guide to tree shapes.

Seven more mallards flew high over the pond, scouting the open water. The wind blew softly through the dry grasses. A birch sapling swayed sinuously to and fro with each gust. I was fully absorbed in and merged with the sounds of nature now. The traffic noise had been filtered out pushed into the background.

A peek at my watch told me that I had been sitting stock still for 55 minutes. I didn’t need to shift my position, but I did. My hands were cold. In just five more minutes it would be time to walk home. Perhaps I might reward my effort with a breakfast of freshly brewed steaming coffee, a fluffy spinach-feta omelette, and a slice of golden brown toast, buttered generously and smeared with thick raspberry jam.

This sit spot took place in Dyberry Township, PA on January 3, 2019.

Note: A week later January cold returned. Ice formed. The mallards had moved on seeking and finding open water on the nearby fast flowing river or on ponds further south. Still, my sense of unease lingered.