Empty nest on Mother’s Day. The earliest fledge date for the chicks in this nest is May 16th, so it is likely the baby robins did not leave this nest on their own. And — we are not aware that adult robins have any ability to move their chicks. So, it is likely that something unpleasant happened here.
Which is why it is a mistake to emphasize the sweetness of “Nature,” without coming to grips with its brutality. We see predators all the time, from the neighborhood cat to the fox, raccoon, and a variety of hawks. Only 25% of fledged robins survive until November of the year in which they are born. These three chicks did not make it from egg to fledgling.
We last saw the chicks some time yesterday, noticed that their heads were now above the edge of the nest. Perhaps it was their increased visibility as well as their cheeps and peeps that increased the likelihood that they would disappear overnight.
Crawford, Texas reprise. The mug Spork Major refused to accept.
Wedding bells and characteristic thoughts about the future.
“
I’m not sure President Bush has thought much about what life is going to be like for him.
He’s self-aware enough to know there’s going to be a postpartum jolt,” Mr. Draper said. “But he hasn’t figured out how he’s going to deal with it day to day.
” — Robert Draper, “W” biographer, to the New York Times, May 10, 2008.
We really don’t have birds on our brains. But, for those who are fascinated by the development of fluffy, adorable eyases into fierce predators, the Rochester Falconcam atop the Kodak Tower is hard to beat. The eyases are hatching at this writing. Three hatched, two to go.
I am the trespasser today — the camera’s optical zoom of 14X making the transgression look worse than it is — or is that merely cheap justification. Perhaps the bird should be blamed. The nest is too close to the garage door, our main entrance and exit to the house. Perhaps it liked the neighborhood. If the nest and the bird keep us from using our door, then maybe the birds are the trespassers, not the babies, of course, which are innocent, but the parents. Bad parents to put their babies at risk. The nest is vulnerable. Well within reach of Scat, the neighborhood’s feral cat, and also possum and fox. Ergo, the babies are at risk. Endangering the welfare of same. If they encroached first, then am I as culpable of disquieting them?
Today I learned — perhaps for the dozenth time — the importance of a place to make notations …
and also, that when something really angers me, it is far too early for a poem, tho’ not too soon for a series of visual notations which may later aid in the making of a poem.
Until I wring the humor out of invasion (in this case), there will be no poem.
As I reviewed my recent entries today, I saw themes emerging that I didn’t know I was working on, so I will let the images come through, and — eventually, there will be at least one poem.
Probably, the poem will be written very quickly, and I will wonder if any poem can be a worthwhile poem if it was written in only a few minutes.
As I am writing this, a hawk — probably a red tailed — swoops through the yard and perches (almost invisible) in a tall oak tree that has not yet fully leafed out. And then, before I can complete this paragraph, it takes flight and disappears behind the neighbor’s pines.
When I read poets’ autobiographies and memoirs, I am impressed and chastened by poets like Maxine Kumin for whom the writing is meticulous and a poem matures over weeks or months, if not years. By contrast, I am so comforted by a post from Mairead Byrne about taking ten minutes to write a poem that I really like (and have forgotten the source, of course) that I sometimes read both her statement and one of her poems at the beginning of a reading.
Property Rights
Not for humans to hold over birds. We are late-comers.
Do my eyes deceive me? They do not deceive me. We did not leave the boats in this place last night. We do not park on the walk with the kayak in the lillies of the valley and wild strawberries. We do not block the side door.
We did not do this.
Tread imprints of a large machine which we did not authorize.
Smudges more serious than mud left on a motel floor — and far more difficult to erase.
Nor this. The patina of the brick — gone. The wholeness of the brick not there anymore to enjoy. The bricks set in place more than fifty years ago, the bricks which have withstood blizzards and tree-falls — one of them cracked overnight.