Looking Up

posted by Mary Lello, Thursday, March 11, 2010, 7:00 AM

I'm enjoying looking up lately. My crows have taught me to do this. When I step out into the yard I will hear their conversations and, wrongfully I'm sure, assume it's about me. So I look up to acknowledge them and find who is braying at me, to watch them fly over my head and land in our Oak tree and pretend they don't see me.

One Sunday morning I was on my way up our hill to get the New York Times from the Town Hall (we call it that as so many of this extended neighborhood gather at the Town Landing Market on Sunday mornings with coffee and papers in hand). I heard a crow and stopped to look up - there directly over my head was a HUGE bird with a squirrel in it's talons. Hawk? Too big. No red tail. Immature Bald Eagle? Quite possibly ... yes! The crows gathered in this tree in force and began their harassment of this predatory bird. The Eagle listened to the abuse for only a few minutes before flying off with it's prize and the entire family of crows in pursuit. Nice start to my morning though maybe not for this juvenile Eagle.

The last couple days have been so warm here that Jim and I have sat out on the deck with our backs to the big Oak that towers over our house. WIth no leaves on the tree yet we have a wonderful, sunny, out of the wind spot to sit and look up. There is a Hairy Woodpecker who is banging out his love song to anyone who will listen ... as far as I can tell it's Jim and I. So I look up, and can see this little guy swooping from one dead branch to another. On the smaller branch he taps out a "rat-a-tat-tat" song. Then he swoops to a larger dead branch and we hear a bass "drrrruuuummm". Although Jim can't locate and see the bird when he heard this different beat he looked at me and said "wow!".

I look up, to see the Maple buds swelling and turning red, to watch the Chickadees and the Purple Finches starting to pair off, to see a little Nuthatch disappear into the hole of a tree branch only to reappear and sit on the edge of his 'porch' before flying off somewhere.

I am looking up, literally and figuratively. This is the best place for us to look right now.

Loving you all right back,

Mary