It’s the anniversary of Gov Baker’s state of emergency. We feel the passage of this past year intensely, with the disruption of routines and livelihoods from the pandemic. But the landscape seems to be in its ordinary annual cycle.
Josh and I took an early morning walk at Norwood Farm. It’s one of our favorites. The dew is frozen on the grass, giving it a precious jewel-like presence. The jays are making a mad chorus of all their sounds: the caws, the clucks, the “shouts and murmurs”. Perhaps they are warning the other birds of the presence of a red tail hawk hunting. Mixed flocks of chickadees and yellow rump warblers flit about.
My favorite oak is bare-leaved, as it was a year ago.
The clumps of St. Andrew’s Cross are burgundy and the ladies tresses I have admired are not visible. The tree branches are bare, showing off the Tupelos twists. We flush some American Black Ducks and see a single bufflehead on a hidden pond.
The open fields are dotted with glacial erratics and trees grow between them...for this was a farm, and the farmers pushed the rocks together and didn’t plow there, enabling some saplings to take root.
It’s a glacial moraine, with the ups and downs and kettle hole ponds that make this landscape so special. I see the spots where sheep laurel will flower in May. And where now there is only one towhee “preening ,” there will be dozens. Fire moss, sphagnum mosses and lichens show the season awakening.
It has been an unusual pandemic year for us, but not much different for the land. There is comfort in that.
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| Yellow-rump |
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| Yellow-rumped warbler |
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| Chickadee |
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| Red-tailed Hawk |
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| Kettle hole pond from a height |
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| Bufflehead in a kettle hole pond |
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| Wintering St. Andrew's Cross |
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| Sunrise March 10, 6:00 am |
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