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@120minute.bsky.social

A.k.a. Zahn. Enjoy photography, travel, and any time I can spend outdoors. All posts are my original work except reposts.

The Carolina Chickadee is a small bird with a big voice. It has a black cap and chin, a white cheek and a buffy tan breast. It is rarely silent for long. Chickadees live in tight winter flocks, and their voices hold those groups together as they move through thickets and woodland edges.

Recent research has shown that chickadee calls are far more complex than they first appear. The familiar “chick-a-dee” call is not a single alarm sound, but a flexible system made up of distinct note types arranged in patterns. Chickadees vary these patterns depending on context, especially when responding to predators. Calls with more “dee” notes tend to signal higher threat levels, and other chickadees—and even different bird species—respond accordingly.

Scientists have also found that chickadees are sensitive to the structure of their calls. When researchers play back calls that break the usual ordering of notes, chickadees respond differently, suggesting that the sequence itself carries meaning. This kind of structured communication has led biologists to describe chickadee calls as “language-like,” not because they form sentences, but because arrangement and repetition matter.

Chickadee calls are heard and interpreted by many other birds, making them a kind of public warning system in winter forests. Nuthatches, woodpeckers, and other species listen closely, using chickadee calls to assess danger and opportunity. In this way, chickadees help organize a whole winter community through sound.

The Red-breasted Nuthatch is a small, restless bird. Its slate-blue back and warm rust-colored breast are set off by a bold white eyebrow and a sharp black eye line, giving it an alert, purposeful expression. It moves headfirst down trunks and along pine branches, probing bark crevices with quick, efficient motions, rarely staying still for long. In the conifer forests of the north, this is a familiar sight. Here in Maryland, it is uncommon.

This winter, a poor cone crop across much of the northern boreal forest has pushed many seed-dependent birds south in search of food. Spruce and fir produced fewer cones than usual, leaving species like Red-breasted Nuthatches with little choice but to wander. Rather than migrating in the traditional sense, they disperse irregularly, following the availability of seeds and suitable habitat. This year, that path has led them into Mid-Atlantic pine woods, where the pines produced a better crop.

What’s striking is how seamlessly these northern visitors have fit in. Red-breasted Nuthatches forage alongside the larger, resident White-breasted Nuthatches with little sign of conflict. Each species seems to occupy its own space, moving through the same trees without friction. It’s an easy coexistence, even though it’s unusual to see both species sharing winter woods here.

My grandmother used to say the mountains are never empty. She said the Plott Balsams listen before they speak, and they remember how you behave when you think no one is watching. She warned us about the Yunwi Tsunsdi, tiny spirits in the meadows, and told us if we ever heard them we should keep moving, eyes forward. Looking for them, she said, was how people got into trouble. They don’t like to be found.

One winter morning I chased a small bird through trees along the ridge with my camera, trying to get an image. He was nervous and never stopped moving, stayed in cover.

The bird soon dropped lower, into brush and tangled vines, and I followed him off the trail. That’s when I heard it: laughter, thin and sharp, slipping through the weeds without any wind to carry it. Not friendly laughter. Amused. Dry. Fading.

I froze. My grandmother’s voice came back clear. Don’t look. Don’t answer. But the laughter moved, circling, staying just out of sight. I lifted the camera, heart pounding, convinced if I was careful I could catch some kind of proof. I crouched lower, crawling forward through the brush, my bare arms brushing leaves and vines as I went.

The laughter shifted again, always ahead of me, never where I pointed the lens. Every time I thought I had them, they were somewhere else. That’s when I noticed the warbler again, perched calmly nearby, pecking at pale berries like none of this concerned him. Poison ivy berries.

I looked down.

My arms were already brushing red and green leaves, shiny and familiar. I understood then. They’d been leading me. In my distraction, I’d crawled right where they intended.

The bird held still then, berry in beak, and gave me an image. Out of pity? The itching came later and stayed with me for weeks.

Every time my arms burned, I shook my head and laughed. My grandmother told me exactly how it would go. The Yunwi Tsunsdi simply reminded me who was more clever — and who should have listened to the stories.

A cluster of deep, pomegranate-red heavenly bamboo berries glows against a backdrop of soft green shadow, each one crowned with glassy ice from the storm. The crystals catch the pale winter light like tiny prisms, while the berries’ smooth skins are bright, warm fire beneath the cold ice.

Now drop the holt, and securely nail
The horse-shoe over the door;
'T is a wise precaution, and if it should fail
It never failed before.

Folks downriver will talk your ear off about luck and tides and moon-phases, but up here we know better. The shad don’t come home on charts or calendars. They come because the Shad Spirit calls them — that speckled bird with gold under his wings and the flash of red on his neck, the one you see tapping on the cedars in the frosty spring mornings.

I’ve watched him more years than I can rightly number. He comes riding in when the south wind shakes the foam at the Sound’s mouth, flying low over the water like an arrow loosed from an old hunter’s bow, straight and sure. And when the river is bright with dawn, you’ll see him skimming just above it — the whole surface turning silver under his shadow, as if the fish themselves were rising to follow.

He’ll perch on driftwood or a rib of wreck and tap, steady as a shepherd calling his flock out of rough seas. But it’s his voice that turns the shad northward. Sometimes it’s a steady bark, sometimes a sharp and rolling laugh that tumbles along the wind. The fish know it; they’ve heard it since the first rivers ran. And they gather when he calls, lifted by a summons older than our stories.

“How does he know the way he flew before?” you ask. Ah now, that’s an old marvel. But I’ve always said the bones of last year’s shad gleam pale on the shore, bright enough to guide him upriver. Even when the wind lies still, the water will turn white with the flock he’s driving before him, their backs flashing like the foam of a breaking wave.

When the pork barrel’s low and the cider cask gone quiet, I’ve heard him tapping on my boat’s chine — telling me the lean days won’t last. So mind my words: when you see that flicker flying like a red blaze over the river, and hear his call dancing down the current, get your nets ready. For the Shad Spirit never passes without bringing a gift up the silver tide.

They say in these mountains that treasure has a long memory, and once it’s buried it calls out to whoever’s meant to find it. That’s how the story of Jacob Hensley begins, though he never meant to chase gold or listen to dreams.

Years back, before Jacob was born, a mail coach was robbed on the ridge above Briar Hollow. The thief fled with two saddlebags of silver, a pocketful of rubies bound for a jeweler, and a velvet pouch of old rings. But he never made it out. He was shot dead by the coaching guard. The treasure vanished. Some said he buried it in haste. Others said the land swallowed it whole.

Jacob paid old tales no mind, until the night he dreamed of a wooden chest beneath his pasture, coins shining in the moonlight. The dream came twice more. At last he said, “If the land’s speakin’, I’d best listen.”

He took to dowsing. But couldn’t find a good pair of sticks. Nothing worked. Not oak or elm or birch.

One cold November evening, with the hills purple in dusk and frost thin on the ground, Jacob walked the pasture’s edge feeling foolish. Then he saw it, a witch hazel tree, quiet as a keeper of secrets. Its golden petals were gone, but the green flower cups caught the last light. And the tree leaned forward, its branches drawn low as though the earth tugged at them.

Jacob froze. They weren’t moving in the wind. They were pointing.

He stepped toward the tree. The closer he came, the lower the forks dipped. “All right,” he murmured. “Show me.” He dug through leaf litter, then cold soil, then sand. His spade struck timber, old and blackened.

It took an hour to raise the chest. When he pried it open, moonlight seemed to pour out: silver coins stacked like river stones, rubies glowing like embers, rings of gold and garnet, old Spanish dollars, and a watch engraved with a strange crest.

Jacob came to be known as a man who could find things. And he’d tell you: Only witch hazel knows the unseen paths. Only witch hazel bends toward what the earth keeps hidden.

An old Lakota Legend:

Come closer to the fire now, grandchildren, and listen with your whole hearts. Long ago, when the world was young and our people walked softly on this land, there lived a young man whose spirit carried a song he could not speak. He loved a girl with eyes calm as morning water, yet whenever he tried to tell her what lived in his chest, his voice failed him. So he went alone into the high hills to pray for courage.

Up there, where the cedar stands watch and the wind knows every name, he heard a strange, wandering music. It was thin and lonely as winter, and it rose and fell like someone trying to remember an old tune. He followed it through the trees until he found a fallen cedar branch, hollowed by time. And there, working along its length, was a sapsucker, tapping holes in the wood—drumming his rhythm, searching for sap, unaware of the man who watched.

Each time the wind slipped over those holes, the cedar branch sang—a trembling voice made by the bird’s work and the breath of the world. “Háu,” the young man whispered, “the small one is teaching me.” He thanked the sapsucker, who flicked his tail and flew off, and he carried the hollow branch back to his fire.

There he shaped it with his knife, smoothing the holes the sapsucker had begun. When he placed his breath inside, the cedar answered. It sang his longing, his hope, his heart. That was the first flute.

When he returned to the village, he stood outside the lodge of the woman he loved and played. She heard the truth in the music and came to him, for a song from the heart cannot be mistaken.

So remember this, grandchildren: even the sapsucker, small and restless, carries the Creator’s wisdom in his tapping. Sometimes the helper we need arrives with feathers and a bright red patch on his throat, to show us the path our own voice must take.

Emily Dickenson

I died for Beauty - but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room -

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty", I replied -
"And I - for Truth - Themself are One -
We Brethren are", He said -

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms -
Until the Moss had reached our lips -
And covered up - Our names -

May your voice call out, even when the meadow lies silent beneath frost and cobalt shadows.
May your words burst forth like golden witch hazel into the stillness, and find open ears.
May your phrases twist and curl like yellow tongues of flame against the dark, your wisdom sure, bringing peace and comfort to all who listen.
May your song rise when the world has gone quiet, an offering to those who shiver in the night.
May your melody stay with them, its beauty playing again and again in their memory.
May your dance be one with the moon and the stars, and the fire capture your core and your pulse, the old warmth banishing the cold darkness and filling your soul with power.
May your song be carried up with the smoke into the sky, and your voice rise like a spark from the embers.
And may your words lift into the pale winter light to join the silver moon and the sparking stars, shining down as a quiet radiance that settles over the meadows and turns the frost into a blessing.

I remember this flower. It grew in the meadow just outside my front door. I watched it open from a tight bud and watched its bloom catch the first light of morning. Its soft lavender petals caught each summer breeze and released a faint mint scent when I brushed past. It bloomed longer than the other bergamot stalks and kept its color even as the rest of the meadow began to dry and fade. All season it stood there, brightening my morning walks with a brilliant glowing lavender against the mint green meadow.

When the petals finally fell in autumn, this seed head remained: tight, geometric, and resilient through autumn windstorms and hail, as if the plant had folded all its strength into the intricate honeycomb. The warm straw-colored tubes echo the flawless purple petals that came before them. Even dried, the plant seems sure of itself, built with more sturdiness than you’d expect from something so wispy and delicate in bloom. And when the winter winds finally shook the seeds loose, scattering them into the grasses, I felt a quiet hope that the beauty that greeted me each morning this year would return in seasons to come.

By late November, the meadow has settled into winter. The purple ironweed and violet bergamot have faded to quiet, pale forms, and the bright yellow goldenrod and wild sunflowers stand as dry seed heads, their stalks weaving a dense, chest-high mosaic. In the low morning sun, the whole field glows, warm amber along the bases of the grasses, cooler shadows rising through the tangle of stems, and the bright fluffy seed heads.

This dense growth is still alive. Even in winter, the meadow feeds and shelters its foragers. Loose flocks of White-throated and Song Sparrows move steadily through the stems, taking seeds one husk at a time, using the standing plants for cover as they hop and flutter from tuft to tuft. Fox and Savannah Sparrows appear occasionally, and Juncos forage methodically along the edges, flipping leaf litter with crisp movements to find the seeds that have drifted down from above. Each plant in its dry form carries food—tiny seeds tucked into pods, tufts of fluff, or the hard rims of spent flower heads.

Toward the center of the field stands a lone maple. Its summer foliage is gone, leaving its branches open and cleanly outlined. Without the leaves, the underlying structure of the tree is a memory of the branches that swayed in the summer breezes. The meadow grasses gather closely around its base in golden waves touched by the sun.

As you walk along the narrow mowed paths that divide the field, the sparrows keep track of you. They trade low, warbled notes… soft, conversational murmurs that feel more like commentary than alarm. You hear them before you see them: a rustle, a quiet chip, the brief flutter of wings. When your footsteps come too near, they lift together and settle into the low thickets at the meadow’s edge, watching from the safety of the cover. Even in late November, the meadow remains a living system: feeding, hiding, sheltering, and sustaining everything that moves through it.

A male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker clings vertically to the rough bark of an old maple. His back and face show a checkered pattern of crisp black and white feathers, while a bright but subdued wash of red colors his chin and crest. Soft, flecked highlights run along the swept-back feathers of his head, catching the light around a dark, alert eye. His bill is a muted gray, and along the flank there’s just a faint hint of the bird’s namesake yellow belly. The background is a gentle blur of winter-blue sky and pale branches, giving the scene a quiet, early-morning feel.

When we were occupied the days were long and hollow.
We rose with the gray light, tilled our fields beneath the watchtowers, and spoke softly so the wind could not carry the old prayers.
The festivals were forbidden—no fires on the hills, no songs for the rivers.
The druids’ stones were toppled, their names unspoken.
Even the land seemed to sleep beneath the weight of Roman law.

Praefectus called us to the green below the Great Oak.
The old, gnarled tree spread wide on the ridge—roots older than memory, branches thick with the wisdom of age.
Its bark still bore the ghost of the old runes, though the soldiers had scraped them once.
We gathered there, thin and silent, and the Roman mounted a stone, sword at his hip.

“People of the frontier,” he said, voice smooth as river clay,
“you live in the peace of Rome.
No hunger, no chaos, no fear.
The Empire shall endure forever, and your children will praise it as you do today.”

A few near the front nodded, murmuring “Yes, lord,” because such words were expected.
The rest only watched with hollow eyes.

Then the wind shifted—from the west, the direction of renewal, where the souls of the dead sail to rest.
It came as a whisper through the oak’s leaves, speaking a language older than Rome.
Out of that breath came a trembling of wings.

A flock of waxwings fluttered down—gold and gray, hundreds of them—filling the branches above him.
They plucked the acorns and passed them beak to beak, each taking one, each giving one, until the whole tree shimmered with motion and sharing.
Someone began to hum a forbidden refrain, softly at first, then joined by others—the song of the circle unbroken.

The Roman kept speaking, but his voice was only wind in the leaves.
Our eyes had turned upward, following the birds, knowing the sign:
the old ways were stirring, and the wheel was beginning to turn again.

Folks still tell about Jesse Harless and Eli Tate down by Iron Gate Lake near Galax. Jesse was a mill-hand, kind but poor. Eli owned the store and kept the books in his head, sharp as a tack. They’d traded on credit for years—feed, nails, flour—until one winter Jesse’s work dried up and a debt grew between them.

What started as talk turned to threats. By midsummer 1911, it was pride that kept them arguing. One thick evening, Eli rode down to the lake where Jesse was fixing his boat. He brought his shotgun, “just to hold,” he’d say later. Bad thing was, Jesse had a rifle in the boat, and soon they faced each other on the stony shore, the sun setting red behind the trees.

They had it out there, each blaming the other, shouting above the wind from a storm that was rising dark over the mountain. Their voices boomed over the water until it was hard to tell who was shouting what.

Then it happened.

Jesse’s daughter Annie had been gathering kindling in the woods. Hearing her father’s voice, she came back cautious and stepped on a branch that cracked too loud. Eli turned quick, and Jesse saw the trouble. He lunged to put himself between the gun and his daughter.

When the smoke lifted, Jesse lay twisted in the shallows, his rifle beside him.

Eli stood frozen while the girl screamed. He dropped his gun and ran to help, but it was too late. Jesse was gone.

From that day on, Eli worked from dawn to dark to pay his guilt. He paid every debt Jesse had owed and made sure Annie and her mother never wanted for anything. He sold his store and spent the rest of his life in hard labor—poor and hollow.

They say summer never comes to the place where Jesse fell. The trees are always bare and the air stays cold, even in August. Nobody goes there, but one fisherman told of drifting into that cove and finding the branches full of bright red cardinals. Their eyes, he said, burned with the shameful question whispered on the wind:

“Is your quarrel really worth the winter it’ll bring?”

When the last purple iron weed faded away and the fields went brown and dry, a sparrow began to worry. Winter would soon seal the earth, and he had no storehouse. Spotting a chipmunk busy with his burrows, the sparrow fluttered down.

“Friend, you’re strong and quick, but I know seeds and seasons,” he said. “Let’s join forces. I’ll gather what we plant, and you shall plant what I gather. Come autumn, we’ll share fairly — I’ll take the tops, and you take the roots.”

The chipmunk thought this sounded just. So all summer they worked: the sparrow collecting millet and goldenrod seed, the chipmunk burying it neatly row by row. When the fields turned gold, the sparrow feasted among the nodding heads while the chipmunk dug up stringy roots and chewed bitterness.

“You’ve tricked me,” Chipmunk grumbled, but the sparrow only tilted his head. “Next time you may choose the parts.”

When spring returned, the chipmunk said, “This year I’ll have the tops, and you the roots.” The sparrow agreed at once. He brought him a bag of green peanuts, and together they planted from dawn to dusk. Through summer the chipmunk watched sturdy leaves unfurl and thought himself wise at last.

But when frost came and the stalks withered, he found the earth riddled with buried pods, and the sparrow cracking shells in triumph. “Peanuts ripen underground,” the little bird said gently. “You should have known your crop.”

The chipmunk’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. All winter he gnawed dry twigs while the sparrow slept warm and full.

When spring came again, the sparrow called, “Shall we plant once more?”

“Never,” said the chipmunk. “I’ll gather my own acorns, dig my own holes, and live on what I store. You are clever, but I’ll eat better if I stick with tradition.”

The sparrow chuckled and flew off to find another partner.

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

In the tender frosty green of early spring, a pair of Yellow-rumped Warblers built a nest in an old witch-hazel tree. Its bark was smooth and silver, its roots deep in the earth, and buds adorned every branch. The birds wove a nest of grass and moss in a sun-caught crook, hidden from sight. Five eggs rested within, pale as pearls, but only one stirred and cracked. A single chick emerged—tiny, shivering, and fragile. The witchhazel felt his hunger, drank from the soil, and sent its strength upward, unfurling leaves to shield him as the sun grew hotter.

Summer hummed with life: insects drifted through the humid air, and the forest bloomed. The fledgling learned his strength in that season. He hopped along the branches, fluttered between blossoms, and found in the witchhazel a patient teacher. Its flowers called the flies and moths he hunted; its leaves fattened the caterpillars that fed him. Each day he flew farther, yet always returned to the same branch—the rhythm of bark and shade became his world.

When autumn deepened, the forest filled with voices: warblers gathering, bright yellow and olive, speaking of southern forests draped in moss. The young bird trembled with wonder and one night he followed their song into the sky. The witchhazel watched him vanish and, in the hush that followed, grew lonely. As frost crept through the ridges and other trees stood bare, it drew the last warmth from the soil and blossomed again—gold ribbons of fire in a gray wood.

Days passed, and word of its beauty spread. Cardinals, sparrows, and bluebirds came to rest among its branches like bright ornaments. Yet the witchhazel missed its friend. Then one still morning, it felt the faint touch of tiny feet. The warbler had returned early, feathers tipped with gold along wings and crown—a tribute to the tree that had sheltered him. He would stay through the winter, foraging what he could from the quiet, snowy meadows, keeping the witchhazel company through the long hush of the cold.

Adapted from an old Blackfoot legend: Long ago, when the world was young and snow lay deep across the plains, Old Man walked beside Wolf, teaching him to hunt. But the cold bit hard, and for days they caught no meat. Distracted by his hunger, Old Man grumbled to the wind, his breath white against the sky. Wolf’s ears drooped, the lessons lost to complaint.

One afternoon they came to a wide river sealed in ice. Four Otters slid across the frozen surface. Wolf’s eyes lit with hunger and he began to chase them.

“Wait,” said Old Man. “The river hides air holes, run too fast and you’ll fall through.”

But Wolf, eager to prove himself, leapt away. The Otters vanished beneath the ice, and Wolf, running full speed, slipped and plunged after them. The current swept him beneath the white sheet of water, and silence closed behind him.

Old Man stood alone on the bank. The wind stung his eyes, and his tears were bitter. He had spoken of patience but had grumbled and complained, and now his favorite pupil was gone beneath the ice.

Downstream he found open water and knelt, weeping into the current, but Wolf did not reappear. Above him sat Kingfisher, bright and sharp-eyed, hunting for fish. Hearing Old Man’s cry echo across the valley, the bird laughed his quick, chattering call.

Old Man looked up, first startled, then angry. “You mock my sorrow?” he shouted, and hurled his war club toward the bird.

By instinct, Kingfisher darted, a streak of blue and white. The club grazed his head, lifting his feathers upright into a dark headdress. In that instant, Old Man saw the truth: the bird’s laughter was not cruelty but instinct.

“Little brother,” said Old Man softly, “your grace has taught what my hunger forgot. Wear your feathers high, so the people remember: joy must live beside respect, and instinct beside wisdom.”

This is how the Kingfisher got his headdress and he has worn it proudly to this day.

The Last Word of a Bluebird.

Robert Frost 1874 – 1963

As I went out a Crow
In a low voice said, “Oh,
I was looking for you.
How do you do?
I just came to tell you
To tell Lesley (will you?)
That her little Bluebird
Wanted me to bring word
That the north wind last night
That made the stars bright
And made ice on the trough
Almost made him cough
His tail feathers off.
He just had to fly!
But he sent her Good-by,
And said to be good,
And wear her red hood,
And look for skunk tracks
In the snow with an ax—
And do everything!
And perhaps in the spring
He would come back and sing.”

An old Chinook legend from the lower Columbia River country tells of a day when Fox, Coyote, and Jay met on the road.

“How are you, Coyote?” asked Fox.
“Hungry,” Coyote sighed.
Jay fluttered down from a branch and preened his feathers. “You’re always hungry,” he teased.
Fox laughed. “Plenty of wagons pass here, full of food. I have a trick—watch me.”

Fox lay down in the road, pretending to be dead. Soon a man came along with a wagon full of supplies. Seeing Fox stretched out, he said, “What fine fur—I'll take him and sell the skin.” He tossed Fox into the wagon. Once inside, Fox ate until he was full, then jumped out and ran back to show the others. “See me, Coyote? I’m full. Do what I did.”

Jay fluffed his wings and said, “Wait—my turn.” He soared high, then swooped down, folding his wings at the last moment so it looked like he’d crashed against the next wagon. The driver saw the blue feathers and cried, “A beauty! These will fetch a fine price for ladies’ hats.” He scooped Jay up and tossed him into the wagon.

Jay stayed still until the man looked away, then pecked open a sack of grain and ate his fill. When the wagon stopped, he flew out the back, scattering kernels and laughing as he went.

At last Coyote tried the trick himself. He lay down in the road and waited. Soon another man came driving by, spotted him, and shouted, “You won’t trick me again like you did yesterday!” He jumped down, beat Coyote with a stick, and sent him running off howling and hungry.

Later Coyote was licking his wounds. “That’s the oldest trick in the book,” he grumbled, “but I thought someone might be enough of a sucker to fall for it twice.” Fox grinned and opened a small bundle. Inside was bread and dried meat. Jay hopped closer with a beak full of grain. “We saved some for you,” said Fox. Coyote’s eyes brightened, and the three of them ate together beside the road.

When they’d finished, Jay flicked his tail and laughed. “We knew you’d already tried every trick in the book.”

Long ago, before the rivers found their voices, the people forgot how to walk in balance. They leaned too far toward the light, or too far toward the dark. Their hearts grew heavy with wanting, and the trees bent with them, unsure which way to grow.

The elders called to the forest for a teacher, and from the great oak came a small bird — White-breasted Nuthatch, quick as breath, soft as the sound of a seed dropping. She climbed the trunk headfirst, upside-down, her tail pressed to the bark.

The people laughed. “Little one, you have lost your way.”

But the bird only answered, “No, I am seeing both sides.”

She showed them that healing does not come from standing still, but from turning — from seeing the world as a circle, not a line.

When they watched her, they learned: to begin again each morning without bitterness; to use what is near at hand, even small things, and make them sacred; to hide their most precious hopes where noise cannot reach them; to trust the help of others, yet keep their own rhythm.

And when the healers sang for balance, they whispered her prayer: Let me see as the nuthatch sees, turning the world to make it whole.

The people began to walk more gently. The trees straightened. The rivers remembered their paths.

Even now, when you hear that little tap-tap on the pine, know she is still at her work — walking the tree both ways, reminding us to change our view, to begin again, and to look with both eyes.

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Ten taps upon my window–pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.

So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life’s window–sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic’s rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.

Fujiwara no Sanekata, a court poet of the Heian era, was known for his wit, beauty, and vanity — and for his strange devotion to sparrows. In a world where every gesture at court was a poem, he found in those small birds the one thing that answered him without pretense.

They gathered outside his residence in Kyoto each dawn, flickering through the mist like living brushstrokes. Sanekata scattered rice before them, whispering verses as if to lovers: “Little messengers of morning, what secret stirs your wings?” The courtiers teased him, saying his heart had flown from the palace to the trees. Yet he called them his consolation in an age of ceremony.

When he was exiled to distant Michinoku for a quarrel at court, he carried a sparrow in a bamboo cage on the long road north. There, amid reed marshes and the cries of cranes, he released it — but each evening he left a handful of rice on his veranda, certain it would return. He wrote, “In the voice of a sparrow, I hear the city I have lost.”

Legend says that in the final year of his life, the sparrows did return — hundreds of them, crowding the eaves of his hut in a storm. When attendants entered the next morning, they found Sanekata seated by the window, brush fallen from his hand, the ink still wet. Outside, the sparrows chattered as if reading his last poem aloud.

In old Kyoto, people still say that sparrows linger near poets’ homes because they once listened to Sanekata’s verses — small keepers of memory, carrying fragments of an exile’s voice across the centuries.

Each year, when the last embers of autumn burn low, winter rises above the horizon as a gray dove. Her wings unfold across the sky and blanket the hills and meadows with silence and peace — a crystalline sheen of frost, the faint threads of an icy breeze. In the high air the clouds grow heavy, the scent of snow sharpens, and then her feathers begin to drift down: pure and white, a peaceful covering that smooths the world into quiet solitude.

As her heralds come the small charcoal birds, reminders of the embers that rekindle the winter hearth on cold December mornings. They perch in the pines, gather in flocks, and a handful of millet will draw them in droves. Shining black eyes, buffy backs, and slate hoods above pure white breasts — their beaks a soft, subtle pink. These are the juncos, the birds of winter, wings fanning in the crisp, cold air to replace the last humid breath of autumn.

Long ago, the world often forgot to wake. The nights would stretch too far, and the dawn would hesitate beyond the hills, unsure of its place. The rivers grew cold, the trees shivered, and even the wind seemed to lose its way. Among all the creatures, it was the Downy Woodpecker who could not bear the silence. He flew to the tallest tree above the river and began to strike the bark again and again, his beak ringing like a drum. With each blow, a thin seam of light split the horizon, and the sky slowly began to breathe.

The others heard him and stirred — frogs lifting their voices, insects tuning their wings, the people opening their eyes to the bright crack of a new day. They say that since then, the Downy has kept the same promise: each morning he tests the strength of the dawn. If the world grows weary, he will wake it again.

His crimson crest glows with the color of that first sunrise, and his tapping still carries through mist and fog like a heartbeat beneath the clouds. To some, it’s just a bird at work, hunting grubs in the bark. But to those who listen closely, it is a reminder that light never returns on its own — it needs a call, a keeper, a steady rhythm.

So when the woodpecker greets the dawn each morning, pause. Let the sound roll through the quiet places inside you. He is striking the edge of darkness, making sure the day still knows its way home.

A Cooper’s Hawk perches at the edge of a pond at dawn. Charcoal feathers catch the faint light before spreading silently into flight. He patrols the forest margin, eyes burning like embers as they rake the thickets and grasses for motion. From his tucked yellow legs extend talons sharp as razors, curved to pierce and hold. Then, from high above, he drops like a bullet, the air folding around him. A sparrow bursts upward, only to be seized on the wing, and swept away. A dark, silent shadow claims his share from last year’s brood.

Matsuo Bashō 1684

Harvest moon—
all night long I circle
the pond.

Bright autumn moon—
around the pond I wander,
all through the night.

The full moon’s light—
I walk the pond’s edge
till night itself dissolves.

The mockingbird sits on a sprig of green leaves, the last breath of summer’s color. Around him, the meadow has faded from the brilliance of autumn fires to the quiet brown of winter. His song, once a flood of mimicry and melody, has softened into fragments — dry scolding notes and half-remembered phrases from summer.

Soon the soft snows will come, and he will move with the winter flocks, branch to branch, taking his share of the fermented berries that hold the memory of sunlight. In that way he keeps the summer alive through the cold — until the spring sun returns to warm the fields and fatten the buds. Then, once more, he will remember his full-throated songs.

A Swamp Sparrow perches at the edge of cover near a bog in a grassy thicket. Its chestnut crown is slightly raised, the rufous patches on its wings half-veiled by lemon-green rushes. A fine yellow eye ring and dark mask set off the gray face, and a warm wash touches the feathers below the eye. The breast shows a soft tan with faint, darker mottling, subtle colors for camouflage in the shadows of the marsh.

$This tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet swims through the autumn forest, weaving through foliage that’s a tapestry of pomegranate and sapphire as it searches for plump insects that have slowed down and fattened up in the late-season chill. A pale lemon wash glows along the edges of its wing primaries, and bright white wing bars flash in the understory of the dark, rain-damp woods. Its black eyes and needle-fine beak fix the observer with an intense, almost challenging stare. Barely three inches long, the kinglet never stops moving—darting, hovering, vanishing among the leaves. The male conceals a crown that is nothing short of astonishing. Most of the day he looks modest, olive and gray-green. Then, in a flash of agitation or courtship, the feathers atop his head flare to reveal a vivid ruby patch, metallic and refractive, each feather catching light and glowing. For an instant he blazes like a tiny king, his ruby crown flared in royal defiance.$

Under the Chihuly Persian Ceiling in Seattle, backlit glass glows like a captured sunset—fluted bowls and discs layered in molten orange and ocean blue, lit from above until the air itself seems to glow. Step beneath it and you drift inside color, where shadow dissolves and edges no longer hold. It’s like being immersed in color, swimming in a pool of light.

They say there was once a man up on Brush Mountain named James Lineberry, an old gray-bearded banjo player who used to pick with Lester Flatt himself before a bass fish the size of a washtub pulled him clean off his feet and broke his finger out at Pandapas Pond. Couldn’t play worth a lick after that, so he turned his music into something you could drink. Folks claimed his shine was the smoothest east of Galax, clear as spring water and absolutely dangerous. The revenuers hunted that still for years, tromping through laurel thickets and mud till their boots came apart, but they never found it. Lineberry had tucked it so deep in the woods that only the mountain seemed to know. Come every autumn, when the fog hung low and the colors burned high, one red maple branch would blaze brighter than all the rest. That was the sign, they said—the banner that marked the trail. Find that branch, and you were in the race: Lineberry’s kin outrunning the law with the tires of their trucks kicking up the mountain gravel. By winter the branch went dull again, and the secret went back underground with the roots.

That morning, the mist hung heavy over the swamps and lakes, rising in thin clouds above the trees. A gull passed on soft wingbeats, barking to its flock, while the distant cry of a loon echoed through the valley. It spoke to the autumn spirits lifting from the reservoir banks like tongues of flame in the dawn, reaching up toward the pale blue sky. The mountain answered, its echo rolling back across the water as the season turned and life in the dark forest awoke and moved out toward the light — toward the sun, the earth, and the quiet fires of autumn.

An ancient Shasta daisy with several white blooms and yellow centers. The bright green foliage is supported by an old gnarled woody trunk. The background is dark charcoal wood that provides contrast.

A thin veil of mist drifts across the still water, softening the reflection of the autumn trees rising at its edge. Gold, crimson, and rust-colored leaves shimmer faintly through the haze, their hues mirrored in the water below. The sunrise filters through the branches, a golden wash warming the cold air and igniting the treetops. A chill lingers despite the sun, enough to bite the ears a bit. The mist moves like breath over glass, diffusing the forest into a watercolor of shifting color and light. It is the kind of morning that wakes the senses.

A Purple Finch feeds in a dogwood thicket where the last berries have dried and fermented to the perfect softness. Their skins are wrinkled now like tiny raisins, sugars turning under the touch of cold air and yeast — a slow transformation that sweetens them just enough to make them irresistible. The fruit is a mix of fat and sugar, quick energy wrapped in oil, each berry a small reserve for the miles ahead. The male Purple Finch is said to be “dipped in wine,” his plumage burgundy and bright. This female has found the vintage — and the pulp on her chin tells the story of her indulgence.

The female Purple Finch’s plumage is muted and understated, yet beautiful to the male who courts her with his burgundy crest and raspberry-streaked flanks. In autumn she sings from the treetops, her voice reminiscent of the lost calls of the Red-eyed Vireo, but slower, softer, and tinged with something like sorrow. She sings about her memories from summer and gazes south, dreaming of the warm tropical days she’ll chase and of her mate waiting there to share the short, quiet winter days. When the fire returns to his plumage and the sun warms up, they’ll journey north again, carrying summer in their wings.

Burgundy chrysanthemums with golden centers grafted to a wooden trunk in the shape of a small tree above a bed of bright yellow Spoon Mums. In the old conservatory at Longwood.

The Towhee wears his plumage like the armor of a knight. He's ready to defend his kingdom. His breastplate is white, hood is black, and his sides fly the russet banner of his order. His red eye burns like an ember, fixed on whatever unseen challenger dares to answer his call. He is the hero of the meadow’s edge—small, fierce, unyielding—ready to defend it with fire, fury, and all the bravery that can fit inside a sparrow-sized body.

Long ago Lugh the skillful and the Clurichaun the mischievous argued over who could bake the finest pióg an fhia—the pie of the deer—in all of Éire. They filled them with venison, onions, and herbs from the fields, drank too much ale while they baked, and both fell asleep beside the fire before tasting the result.

A flock of éininí bána, little white birds with brilliant plumage, thin from migration, followed the scent to the camp. They meant to steal the pie and flee, but one bite led to another. Soon the clearing was filled with crumbs and tiny, guilty chirps.

The noise woke the Clurichaun. Furious, he grabbed a handful of soot and ash from the fire and hurled it at the flock. The cinders clung to their feathers, streaking them with black. He was drawing breath to cast the birds into the fire when Lugh stirred, eyes still soft with sleep and laughter.

“Hold, old friend,” he said. “Look at them—white and black together, like light and shadow. You’ve made something finer than any pie.”

The Clurichaun scowled, unconvinced, so Lugh played a trick to calm him. With a wink he created a mighty birch tree, its bark striped white and black to match the birds. The éininí bána leapt forward and vanished, perfectly camouflaged, and to this day they still climb along the branches of birch trees—streaked with black ash and searching for worms as delicious as that pióg an fhia.

The Clurichaun took a long sip from his mug and leaned back in his chair. “The pie they chose was mine, Lugh,” he said. “Yours is still over there.”
Lugh chuckled and cut the remaining pie into four slices. “You win, my friend,” he said. “Now let’s enjoy what’s left.”

A Palm Warbler is perched at the edge of a pokeweed thicket in an autumn meadow, drawn out of cover by the recorded mobbing call of a Carolina Wren. He came charging forward—the wisest and bravest of his family—to confront an unseen threat. Instead, he found me, and perhaps realizing the deception, settled on a branch, tail bobbing nervously. I was enormous compared to him, yet I backed away and yielded (I was backing up to bring him into frame and focus through my lens). Still, in that moment he was a giant, a champion. We regarded each other: he, in the late part of his season, beautiful in the soft, golden warpaint of fall plumage; and I, approaching later seasons of my own, wrapped in a worn old sweatshirt against the chill, breathlessly mashing the shutter button on my camera. We watched one another that morning across an impossibly wide moat of existence, with nothing—and yet everything—in common.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler perches quietly on a slender gray branch among red maple leaves that glow like embers in the first light of dawn. The bird faces the sunrise, body turned slightly as if reflecting upon summer adventures and the long flight south. Its soft brown back and golden flank catch the muted light, the small yellow patch at the rump shining like a tiny patch of sunlight. Around it, the leaves whisper of change—scarlet and orange against a pale blue sky, colors that feel both arrival and farewell. The warbler sits still for a rare moment, looking east as though thinking back on summer territories, cool northern forests, and the long miles of migration that brought it here.

The Hermit Thrush is a small, warm-brown forest bird with a russet tail and finely spotted breast. Shy and solitary, it sings from deep cover at dawn or dusk. Its summer song is among the most beautiful in nature—clear, fluted notes spiraling upward in pure harmonic intervals. Each phrase hangs like glass, balanced between sorrow and serenity.

Its syrinx, the bird’s vocal organ, is unusually complex: each bronchial branch can work independently, allowing two notes at once, often forming perfect harmonies. The “glassy” tone arises from stacked partials that follow a harmonic series, the same pattern used in Western music. Research at the University of Vermont showed that Hermit Thrush songs align with “just intonation”, pure resonant intervals based on whole-number ratios. It’s as if the Thrush discovered harmonic beauty long before humans. Perhaps we were even inspired.

Across cultures, the thrush has been seen as sacred, a voice of balance and renewal. In Haudenosaunee legend, it hid in the Eagle’s feathers, and sang its perfect song at the edge of heaven before returning shyly to the forest, singing from the heart, not for praise. Later, Walt Whitman called it the “solitary singer,” writing:

In the swamp, in secluded recesses,
A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song,
Solitary, the thrush,
Singing of death, and of the soul’s clear conscience,
And of life—immeasurable joy.

In ancient stories recorded by both Aristotle and Pliny, the Goldcrest was known as the King of the Birds. Its golden crown was said to be more than mere plumage — it was a badge of wit and endurance. The tale tells that all the birds once gathered to decide who should be their king, agreeing that the title would go to whoever could fly the highest. The Eagle soared above them all, strong and sure, rising until the air thinned around him. But hidden among his feathers was the smallest of birds, the Goldcrest, who waited until the Eagle’s strength began to fade. Then, with a sudden burst, it lifted from his back and climbed just a few inches higher. When the Eagle descended, the little bird called out, “I am king!” Some say the others laughed; others say they bowed, for even the smallest had proven cleverness and courage. Biologists later gave the bird its western name from this legend. In North America we call the Goldcrest the Golden-crowned Kinglet, and its cousin, the Firecrest, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. These tiny kings of the woods and thicket.

Long ago, when the world was still learning the language of color, there lived a young woman who loved the sun. Each morning she stood at the edge of the prairie and lifted her arms to the light, whispering thanks for its warmth, its courage, its unbroken path across the sky. The people said her devotion was so pure that one day, the Great Spirit took pity on her longing and transformed her into a tall, golden flower, her face forever turned toward the sun’s path.

When the seasons changed and her seeds scattered, they took root in open meadows and river valleys. Some grew tall and strong with bright yellow petals and dark yellow cores, and became the sunflowers, the eldest children of her spirit. Others stayed closer to the earth, their blossoms smaller but countless, glowing like golden dust on the wind. These became the goldenrods, her gentle kin. Together they bloom each autumn, side by side, covering the fields in stunning shades of gold.

Even now, as the air cools and shadows lengthen, the memories of their brilliance linger in the seeds that are scattered, or that feed the wildlife in the meadows, and that will whisper the brilliance of the blossoms down to the next generation.

$The mountain gleams like light through a cathedral window. Amber, gold, and green shards rise from the forest floor, melting into the gray-blue stone of the mountain above. The cliff face stands in streaked slate, fractured yet enduring, while the canopy below burns with molten color. A single pane of cobalt sky glows above it all. The mountain is wrapped in a colorful autumn coat.$