Hundreds of Starlings; Gather Golf Ball and Skull

March 10, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Work tonight, take Mway out about 12:30.  Yesterday, those were indeed starlings I was hearing, as later on that afternoon, after Moi came home and was outside checking her chickens, we saw and heard them up in the trees in the old orchard, and Moi confirmed, “yes, those are starlings.  Flock around like this every spring.”  Today I first hear and see them outside the living room window, dozens of them in the walnut trees along the lane.  Then I see them fly over to the trees around the summer house.  Today I decide not to wear my snow suit; instead, together with my wool cap and gloves, I put on the denim work jacket that used to be my father’s.   Dried mud falls off my boots as I put them on, and falls in clumps on the floor.

State of the Path:  As soon as I step outside, the starlings in the trees by the summer house start to fly off.  As I walk past the walled garden, snapping off some of the multiflora branches off the bush opposite Moi’s garden pond (which has been filled with mucky water these past couple weeks), I see what I think are the same starlings gathering together in the trees along the hedgerow.  As I walk along the old orchard, these starlings are again spooked and start to fly off.  In the distance, though, I can hear the eerie chirping and chattering of starlings, and when I get to the hedgerow, I look across Hutchinson’s field, and sure enough I see hundreds of the birds perching in the trees in the wood lot beyond the field.  Down at the creek, at the corner of our property line, I look up in the field going up to the ridge and think I see some sort of ground bird standing there.  I stand quietly for a couple minutes, waiting for some movement of some kind, but finally conclude that I must be simply looking at some sort of plant, and move on.  As I walk along the creek, I see more starlings perched in the oaks ahead of me, but these birds fly off too as I get closer to them.

State of the Creek:  The water is starting to get low, although there are still ponds in bug land, and water running off from bug land, but this water gets trapped in a sand bar right in front of the creek, and slowly trickles in from the side.  There is water in the feed channel to the skating pond, but it is not moving.  I’ve decided today, come what may, to fetch the golf ball and the skull on the other side of the creek.  In that area of the creek there are no big rocks to step across, so I have to step right into the water a few steps.  Sure enough, as soon as I do so, I feel water seeping into my rubber boots.  I gather up the golf ball and the skull, as well as a couple of leg bones I find near the skull.  I put the golf ball in my jacket pocket, and I place the skull in the crook of a small tree near the ridge along the skating pond, and lay the bones crosswise each other at the base of the tree.

The Fetch:   Up in the clearing, Mway seems to be on a roll for fetching these days, again going beyond the three fetches that seemed to be her standard for a number of weeks.  I pitch the stick as far as I can, and Mway goes after it enthusiastically, sometimes sliding in mud as she nears the stick, and barking each time after she’s dropped it at my feet, until – I don’t bother counting how many fetches today – she decides she’s done enough and runs off ahead of me to the back porch.

ADDENDUM!:  Just now I went down into the kitchen to roll a cigarette, and outside I hear what I believe to be the same song I heard the other day that I identified as that of a sparrow:  “chee-oo chee-oo chee-oo.”  But when I look out the window I see a male cardinal in the tree, at the spot where the sound must be coming from.   So now I conclude it must have been a cardinal I was hearing.  But looking back at what I wrote on those days, I see that I’ve transcribed the song as “choo-ee choo-ee choo-ee,” rather than “chee-oo chee-oo chee-oo.”   Am I indeed hearing the song of two different types of birds, or did I incorrectly transcribe the song I heard before?  I am confused.