Monday, February 19, 2007

Good Company

At one point in my slow pottering through the icy Lanark woods yesterday morning, there was a handful of chickadees sitting on each shoulder, and a downy fellow was perched on my hat. The little "downy" seemed to think that I was a tree of some kind, but didn't peck me - he just sat contentedly with his tiny talons planted firmly in the thick wool of my toque and hitched a warm ride up the trail to the bird feeders and the suet.

Perhaps I am evolving into a tree, and if so what sort of tree am I becoming? Am I turning into an ash, a cherry, a walnut, a weeping willow, a maple, a satiny beech, a whiskery hornbeam, a hemlock, a boreal pine or a great oak?

7 comments:

Endment said...

What a delightful day!
I like the thought of evolving into a tree... I cant choose between a birch or a hemlock... Please let me know when you choose your tree :)

Chris Kreussling (Flatbush Gardener) said...

My closest avian encounter was with a hummingbird on Fire Island. It had flown through an open porch door into the house where we were staying . It was flying all around where the walls met the ceiling, trying to find a way out. For some reason, it couldn't find its way back out the door.

I realized it was also unable to find a perch. I stood in the middle of the room, held my arm upright, and extended my index finger horizontally. After a few minutes, it landed on my finger, exhausted. I slowly lowered it to eye-level, and it remained there. I felt its heartbeat as a hum. We all appreciated it for a few minutes, then I walked out onto the porch, held my arm out again, and it flew off.

I'd want to be an oak. But maybe it's just 'cause I don't know other trees that well. I wonder how I would look in hickory?

bluemountainmama said...

here via "fragments"....i'm amazed that the birds perch on you- so neat! i think i would be a dogwood or willow....two of my favorites. but you didn't say which you would be? anyway- lovely photography...i enjoyed scrolling down and seeing the beautiful scenery.

Anonymous said...

I've never thought about what kind of tree I might be, but now I will probably think about it all the time. I love white oaks, but I'm not sure I'd qualify. Something short and eccentric might be better for me. Maybe a redbud? This is a clever little thought experiment.

Anonymous said...

I am not sure what tree you are but I bet it was the warmest tree those birds had perched on!

I have always been fond of Aspens.

thank you for todays and everydays posts, I read you every morning with my coffee.

Dawn

z-silverlight said...

How very superb, The small brothers recognize you as a friendly being food source. You are definately a relative if the great She.

Steve Emery said...

Hummers used to get lost and trapped in our garage, until I realized the red shape hanging that lured them in and I replaced it with something grey. I used to wait until full dark, when they would finally perch on a wire along the ceiling, then I would climb up on the roof of our van and pluck them from the wire with my hand. They were all different, some more blue or more green. Some longer or shorter, and their tail feathers were surprisingly different from one to the next. I realized that we see the species but there are really only individuals. I would give each some sugar water, when they stopped peeping pitifully from fright, and I would release them outdoors. Their pulse felt like a vibration, as if their life were lived many times faster than ours.

I looked up your blog this evening after encountering it on dear Moomin Light's. I was reminded of something and found a passage for my connection with her. "Between the spirits of Alveric and Lirazel lay all the distance there is between Earth and Elfland; and love bridged the distance, which can bridge further than that; yet when for a moment on the golden bridge he would pause and let his thoughts look down at the gulf, all his mind would grow giddy and Alveric trembled." Love. Life. Faery is every day here, if we can reach for it. The shining line crossed us all long ago. "...and, gazing over their familiar lands, perceived that they were no longer the fields we know."

And if I could be any tree I wished, I'd be a linden, full of sweet blooms in the spring, and the buzz of bees.