Last Saturday was a moist, warmish, fall day.  My husband and I took a break from cutting and carrying firewood to sit for a bit on the bench at the top of our driveway.  From there, we could take in the view of the ridge known as Great North Mountain, and the whole tree-covered valley between us and the mountain.  The air felt almost balmy, and it was a pleasure to gaze out at the muted greens, the now-dominant browns, and the trees that were already bare.

     I almost always find when I’m outdoors, that the more I look, the more I see.  This day was no exception.  As I sat, I began to notice movement in a couple of the trees below.  The movement was accompanied by some soft cheeping sounds.  I watched as several birds, silhouettes from my vantage point, flittered about, settling on one branch, and then maybe another.  These birds were joined by several more birds, then more, and still more. 

     Their crested, slightly elongated figures combined with the dark branches to form a graceful shape against the sky.  What were these birds?  Could they be titmice? (What a name for a bird!)  They seemed a little too slender for that.  Could they be jays? 

     A little later, back at the house, I noticed that the same small flock was now flitting about in a pear tree by the deck.  And now I could get a good look at them.  They were cedar waxwings!  I have long had a great fondness for those tawny birds with their fierce-looking crests and eyes masked in a black stripe.  But I didn’t remember seeing cedar waxwings around here.  Maybe they had been eating the red berries from the small Rose of Sharon tree next to the pear.  

     I took full advantage of this rare opportunity to watch cedar waxwings up close.  I hadn’t realized before just how beautiful they are.  Their tails were tipped with yellow, their wings with red, and their backs sported a little bit of white. 

     The birds disappeared soon after that.  I learned from my bird book that a flock of cedar waxwings may suddenly appear in an area, devour the available berries, and then depart just as suddenly.  And that must be what happened, because I haven’t seen a single cedar waxwing since that day.

     My delightful experience on Saturday is a reminder to me of just how much is going on in the natural world at any given moment, and how things are changing all the time.  The cedar waxwings’ visit to our place was fleeting, and I would have missed it entirely had I not taken a little time out of my ‘busyness’ to sit outside and look around.–April Moore

      

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 8:48 am and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.