Packing Up

The snow I photographed Monday Sept 17th finished our summer at the cabin. It had become increasingly cold (about 10-15 degrees celsius below the seasonal average), and despite the fact that the fall colour was just beginning and the migration of birds was still beautifully evident, we packed up and were on the road by Tuesday.

"The music seemed to him oddly unartificial. It made him think of trees swept by the wind, of night breezes singing among wires and chimney-stacks, or in the rigging of invisible ships; or — and the simile leaped up in his thoughts with a sudden sharpness of suggestion — a chorus of animals, of wild creatures, somewhere in desolate places of the world, crying and singing as animals will, to the moon. He could fancy he heard the wailing, half-human cries of cats upon the tiles at night, rising and falling with weird intervals of sound, and this music, muffled by distance and the trees, made him think of a queer company of these creatures on some roof far away in the sky, uttering their solemn music to one another and the moon in chorus."

from Ancient Sorceries (John Silence)
by Algernon Blackwood

While picking up the canoe we encountered a flock of Eastern Bluebirds and while the photo is not great I thought I  would share it.

"in nature there are few sharp lines: there are areas of   

primrose

       more or less dispersed;

disorderly orders of bayberry; between the rows

of dunes,

irregular swamps of reeds,

though not reeds alone, but grass, bayberry, yarrow, all ...

predominantly reeds:

I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries,   

shutting out and shutting in, separating inside

          from outside: I have

          drawn no lines:

          as

manifold events of sand

change the dune’s shape that will not be the same shape   

tomorrow,

so I am willing to go along, to accept   

the becoming

thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends, establish   

         no walls:"

from Corsons Inlet

by A.R. Ammons 

A few days ago we were birding with a friend in the 

evening when we took the back lane into to the farm

to look for some wrens. We did not find them but we

did find a family of Mountain Bluebirds the first I have

seen there in 30 plus years of visits. It has been an odd 

summer in some ways. For over a week the sun has been

red and the sky overcast due to the fires in northern 

Saskatchewan and northern Canada in general. It is dry

here was well which has changed our landscape, shallower

water in the slough which had been abnormally high for

several years means not fish since the water freezes to the 

bottom and there is less influx of water from the larger 

sloughs and lakes. That means we have no Kingfishers and

Herons here and fewer on the larger sloughs. We also do not 

see Terns as in previous years. We also don't seem to have as 

many Vesper Sparrows in the field which seems strange 

since they are a dry land bird. We have lots of Purple 

Finches and Goldfinches but that maybe the result of the

fact that we have been feeding them since June. By staying

longer we do see a different cycle, When we came we could 

see 10 species of birds right next to the porch in a couple of

hours. Then the numbers declined as they started looking 

after their eggs. Now they are beginning to return with 

their young which is  fun to see.

And I think some Bluebird boxes are in my future.

"Out of the dry days

through the dusty leaves

far across the valley

those few notes never

heard here before

one fluted phrase

floating over its

wandering secret

all at once wells up

somewhere else"

from Unknown Bird

by W.S. Merlin