my favorite place
i spent yesterday afternoon in the most sacred place i've found since moving to montana.
we awoke to at least six inches of snow yesterday, pine trees laden with snow had boughs bowing to the ground. branches i can normally walk under blocked the way to the garden. it was the last day of november, so we decided to go fishing.
our chosen stream, luckily, wasn't frozen. the sky was a purple-gray and the snow where we walked was without human footprint. we saw crisscrossing deer tracks, and bird prints, and the curled-up carcass of a mouse who hadn't made it to december. he was a small furry stone in the snow, uncovered. i wondered about dying, about decembers, about change.
as we walked along the creek we scared about four partridges, who scared us in return when they suddenly charged the sky, just a few yards away. they sailed into invisibility over the nearest hill. when we walked past their former hiding place, we saw just a handfull of yellow grasses and four round totems in the snow, where their warm bodies had just hunkered. there were no prints around to suggest thier arrival or departure. it was as if they had always sat just there, waiting for the snow, and then been buried by it. we kept walking.
we'd been especially surprised by the partridge because our attention was on the very tall top of a very tall cottonwood tree, where a golden eagle perched, watching us. although our path took us toward and then past his tree, he decided to stay and watch our progress, rather than taking off before we could get too close. we took his picture, happy to be able to identify him through my camera's 300mm zoom lens. as we drew even with his roost, he opened his gigantic wings and glided into the sky, interrupting the overhead flight of dozens of canadian geese. we watched them all, and listened to them, until we stumbled too close to the covey and flushed them in turn.
it seemd like the entire river knew of our presense the moment we began walking. as we headed upstream, we heard the indescribable sound of hundreds of mallards rising from the water. waterfowl were abundant; the soft bends in the stream created dozens of pockets of water without current, where the ducks had come to rest. although at times we couldn't even see the stream, the ducks and geese sensed us nearby and left the water in waves. the skittish first, a hundred ducks sounding like a waterfall into the air. then the next set, hundreds more, rising behind them, following them, then maginally dividing themselves in the air into their repective flocks. some would travel upstream, some down, and we would keep walking, awed and joyful, until the last ducks rose. withint a minute, we would hear this amazing waaaaassshhhh sound, and look to see the sky fill with mallards or geese or some unidentifiable species -- all bobbing together moments before -- in three or four separate waves. we would see so many birds that it was unfathomable that twice or three times as many still sat on the water, awaiting their turn to escape into the sky.
when we finally approached the water, it was, of course, at one of these still places because, in the winter, the trout are as drawn to those slow, deep pools as the waterfowl. out of the current, where the water isn't so cold. as we walked closer, we flushed every duck from this place -- at least five times, the air was thick with wings and wooshing water sounds -- and then, even as we crept up over the bank, a dozen or so birds took off yet from this place that couldn't possibly have been filled with thousands of birds a moment before. and even then, as we walked to the edge of the water, the last two mallards -- a pair, male and female -- noisily left their comfortable spot. of the thousands of birds taking wing in our half-mile walk, these were the only ones who quacked. in general their simultaneous ascensions were strikingly silent, except for the waterfall sound.
of course, once they collected overhead into formations, they peeped and quacked at one another in typical travel conversation. many of the birds we spooked found other places on the water to rest, no doubt anxious to reclaim their place on the creek once we left it. but in spite of their re-settling, the sky was never quiet. for our entire walk we were accompanied by the casual chatting of even more waterfowl, so high in the sky and obscured by falling snowflakes as to be rendered pointillist. these birds were on the move, and clearly had a very long way to go. interestingly, as the day wore on we saw more and more migratory flocks in the sky. and during our last hour, when the snow fell so hard that we could barely see one another through our facefulls of huge snowflakes, the sky was as full of ducks and geese as i have ever seen. were they prompted by a moving front? the cover provided by the snow? the time of day? i felt overwhelmed by their understanding of the world, and so humbled.
we awoke to at least six inches of snow yesterday, pine trees laden with snow had boughs bowing to the ground. branches i can normally walk under blocked the way to the garden. it was the last day of november, so we decided to go fishing.
our chosen stream, luckily, wasn't frozen. the sky was a purple-gray and the snow where we walked was without human footprint. we saw crisscrossing deer tracks, and bird prints, and the curled-up carcass of a mouse who hadn't made it to december. he was a small furry stone in the snow, uncovered. i wondered about dying, about decembers, about change.
as we walked along the creek we scared about four partridges, who scared us in return when they suddenly charged the sky, just a few yards away. they sailed into invisibility over the nearest hill. when we walked past their former hiding place, we saw just a handfull of yellow grasses and four round totems in the snow, where their warm bodies had just hunkered. there were no prints around to suggest thier arrival or departure. it was as if they had always sat just there, waiting for the snow, and then been buried by it. we kept walking.
we'd been especially surprised by the partridge because our attention was on the very tall top of a very tall cottonwood tree, where a golden eagle perched, watching us. although our path took us toward and then past his tree, he decided to stay and watch our progress, rather than taking off before we could get too close. we took his picture, happy to be able to identify him through my camera's 300mm zoom lens. as we drew even with his roost, he opened his gigantic wings and glided into the sky, interrupting the overhead flight of dozens of canadian geese. we watched them all, and listened to them, until we stumbled too close to the covey and flushed them in turn.
it seemd like the entire river knew of our presense the moment we began walking. as we headed upstream, we heard the indescribable sound of hundreds of mallards rising from the water. waterfowl were abundant; the soft bends in the stream created dozens of pockets of water without current, where the ducks had come to rest. although at times we couldn't even see the stream, the ducks and geese sensed us nearby and left the water in waves. the skittish first, a hundred ducks sounding like a waterfall into the air. then the next set, hundreds more, rising behind them, following them, then maginally dividing themselves in the air into their repective flocks. some would travel upstream, some down, and we would keep walking, awed and joyful, until the last ducks rose. withint a minute, we would hear this amazing waaaaassshhhh sound, and look to see the sky fill with mallards or geese or some unidentifiable species -- all bobbing together moments before -- in three or four separate waves. we would see so many birds that it was unfathomable that twice or three times as many still sat on the water, awaiting their turn to escape into the sky.
when we finally approached the water, it was, of course, at one of these still places because, in the winter, the trout are as drawn to those slow, deep pools as the waterfowl. out of the current, where the water isn't so cold. as we walked closer, we flushed every duck from this place -- at least five times, the air was thick with wings and wooshing water sounds -- and then, even as we crept up over the bank, a dozen or so birds took off yet from this place that couldn't possibly have been filled with thousands of birds a moment before. and even then, as we walked to the edge of the water, the last two mallards -- a pair, male and female -- noisily left their comfortable spot. of the thousands of birds taking wing in our half-mile walk, these were the only ones who quacked. in general their simultaneous ascensions were strikingly silent, except for the waterfall sound.
of course, once they collected overhead into formations, they peeped and quacked at one another in typical travel conversation. many of the birds we spooked found other places on the water to rest, no doubt anxious to reclaim their place on the creek once we left it. but in spite of their re-settling, the sky was never quiet. for our entire walk we were accompanied by the casual chatting of even more waterfowl, so high in the sky and obscured by falling snowflakes as to be rendered pointillist. these birds were on the move, and clearly had a very long way to go. interestingly, as the day wore on we saw more and more migratory flocks in the sky. and during our last hour, when the snow fell so hard that we could barely see one another through our facefulls of huge snowflakes, the sky was as full of ducks and geese as i have ever seen. were they prompted by a moving front? the cover provided by the snow? the time of day? i felt overwhelmed by their understanding of the world, and so humbled.
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