Under the Vulture Tree

(I know I'm getting a little obsessive about these birds these days...)

A couple of weeks ago, a Wednesday morning, skies grey, temperatures in the mid-40s. I am taking my morning run in Wildwood Park a little later than usual. On all my runs, I've grown accustomed to seeing them soaring overhead in groups so large the sky is sometimes a swirling sea of black wings. They've become a comforting sight, somehow. I approach the bird-watching platform and realize that there are hundreds of black vultures all perched together in a cluster of oak trees. I pause the music and walk down to the platform, and suddenly, I am standing beneath them all. To my surprise, none of them move, none seem to acknowledge my presence. I've seen turkey vultures up close like this, but never the blacks. They are literally right above my head and I spend a good ten minutes or so watching them. And then, without warning, a couple spread their wings and leave - I wonder what reasons motivate them - and all the rest follow.

By now it's clear that there's more thinking, and probably writing, real writing, to be done with the vultures. Some larger metaphor in this that I need to meditate on more closely. In all my researching, some of the most interesting details I've learned: to the ancient Egyptians, vultures were deities, emblems of motherhood, giving life and then later taking it back, and to Mayans they also represented fertility. I meditate further. And wait until the next time.

Mysteries of the Bear

I watched a Nat Geo show recently, "Mystery Bear of the Arctic". The mysterious bear in question turned out to be, discovered through extensive DNA testing, to be a polar/brown bear hybrid, with a polar mother and a brown father, the only one of its kind yet found (they speculate that because both species often birth multiple cubs, there could be others still out there). I'm not entirely convinced by the "reasons" given for such a union - that grizzly would have had to travel an unheard of distance, into a range where they are not known to go. But given that both species either avoid interaction entirely if they do meet, or that such interactions usually involve a violent conflict, this is a curious and fascinating idea to consider. Then again, I'm a little over-informed and over-interested in bears.

Still, I can't help but dwell on the reasons the bear was discovered in the first place. Ridiculously rich American man spends $25K to participate in escorted polar bear hunt by Native Inuit guide. The whole situation feels morally questionable and exploitative. That photo says it all.

Roar

A few nights ago, late, I sat in the office working and again paused from my work to listen to the wind, roaring and howling and shaking, as I often do. Before coming here, the presence of wind was something I rarely considered, something I simply took for granted. But now. Here it's necessarily become something I have no choice but to think about often, an omnipresent companion that remains always close. I have never before seen, let alone lived in, such a windy place. At least several times, every single week, we have 40-50+ mph winds that come in usually suddenly and without warning. I've researched and researched, but have found no one that mentions the phenomena particular to this region. Geographically, the presence of such frequent and powerful winds makes sense: the New River Valley lies tucked quietly in between the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains. This is a very economically depressed area, with little in the way of commerce. I remain puzzled, then, why no one here has yet considered harnessing these winds for power.

In thinking about the wind, I am reminded of this poem by Ted Hughes:

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

On Vultures

I've posted before about the enormous turkey and black vulture populations here in Radford. Radford has one of the largest turkey vulture and black vulture populations in the country (there's a 1000+ bird roost out at the local army ammunitions plant, plus a gazillion more birds in the city). Every year for the past several, Radford has been having this "Vulture Day" to educate people about the birds. We missed it last year, but finally, we all went to this year's activities and it was great fun!

There were crafts for Z., which she loves, but the best part was that we got to meet a turkey vulture in person. "Buttercup" was hit by a car and can't ever be released again into the wild, so her caretaker, Bob (an RU faculty member in Biology who we have known for a while), takes her around for educational purposes. Vultures are definitely demonized by the local folks here. During our visit, J. got to hold her, and Little Miss Z. - She Who is Currently Afraid of EVERYTHING - was really thrilled to see her and even petted her feet several times. That's definitely *progress* on her part.

Cooler still was there was a man there taking photos who we got to talking to; he snapped these photos of J. & Z. with Buttercup. He's apparently editor of a local nature newspaper/journal The Appalachian Voice. He wants to use one of the photos for the back cover of the next issue. And, in talking with him, he was really interested in me and my work, and suggested that I might find some writing opportunities with the journal. Being such a natural introvert, I rarely make these sorts of connections, so I am excited for the possibilities.

No Cease-Fire Agreement Yet Reached

Ah, so if you thought perhaps that our ongoing WAR with the brown marmorated stinkbugs down here in Radford had finally come to a close, you'd be very, very wrong. According to Google, they're supposed to have 3-weeks to a month of activity, once they hatch. So with that calendar in mind, we should have been done with these beasts sometime in mid-October. And yet, here we are, months later, and we are still finding those damn things in the house (we didn't even open a single window most of that time, a fact which pains me greatly, as I crave fresh air). We're not finding many, but they just still Won't. Go. Away. Not even with all this cold (cold even for the South, like 20 degrees at night lately). I found one under the baby's crib the other day, hiding among her extra linens. I can only imagine how many of those things are hibernating - because they don't actually die in the winter - in our attic. Argh.

Nesting Dreams

After the ill-fated and much-failed hummingbird experiment back in Pittsburgh, I haven't really felt compelled to do much in the way of bird feeding since. Part of it has to do with my ongoing *bird issues* and part of it is that, while I love and admire all animals, birds just don't really do it for me. But I guess I have never before lived in a place with such an amazing and incredible diversity of birds as there are here. And The Toddler is turning out to be really into birds. So we went and got ourselves a bird feeder - supposedly "squirrel resistant" - and hung it from the maple tree in front yard. We're not getting too much action yet out there, as it seems more different types of birds hang out in the back yard (we'll get a feeder out there next, I think). But I'm sitting there on the couch diligently with my Audubon Field Guide to Birds Northeastern Edition, learning how to become a novice bird-watcher. So far, though, I'm not improving much in my birding skills. Maybe it's my poor eyesight. Or maybe it's because those things are so twitchy and fast and unpredictable (the source of my "issues" in the first place!), I just can't ever seem to get a good, close-enough look. But I'm trying. We're all trying. Z. seems to think that it's "her" bird book and whenever I take it out, she has to steal it from me and look at the pictures.

Thus far, we have identified:

• rufous-sided towhee;
• Carolina chickdee;
• tufted titmouse;
• jay;
• cardinal;
• common grackle

And of course at other places in town we've seen the vultures, both turkey and black. But more on that soon. Radford's annual "Vulture Day" is fast approaching and this year, we're definitely going!

Remembering the Exact Color and Design

In a former life - the one without Very Small People - I used to look forward to the start of Daylight Saving Time, in spite of the fact that it meant I couldn't deny the approach of winter any longer (much as I would like to). It inevitably fell on the same night as our annual Hallowe'en Extravaganza, so we gained both an hour of extra partying and an hour of extra sleep. These days, especially with little V., there's no such thing as an extra hour of sleep, ever. Naturally this year, both girls' schedules were all out of whack and both woke up extra, extra early the day the clocks were turned back. Rather than wallow in my sleep-deprived-misery, I decided to seize the moment. As I looked out the dining room sliding door windows to the mountain ridge in the distance, I could tell that it was going to be an absolutely glorious sunrise that morning. Hearing through the baby monitor that Z. was already awake, I ran to her room and excitedly said, "Come quick! I want to show you something COOL!" That sort of promise, even if it's made over something we adults would find small or silly, always motivates her in surprising ways. So we both went dashing downstairs to the dining room and I pointed out at the sunrise, which was just as spectacular as I thought it was going to be. The skies were the most intense shade of crimson-red, light shining through filmy clouds over the tops of trees just coming into their most colorful autumn hues. We stood there together at the glass, just watching and admiring. Z. even stood still for longer than usual.

Even a week later, she is still talking about that sunrise. I feel blessed not just to have shared it with her, but that she has the capacity to appreciate such small, beautiful moments in this world.