Male Junco, photo by May Woon.
All is flux, nothing stays still.
–Heraclitus.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river
and he’s not the same man.
–Heraclitus (the SAME)
Bridget and I encountered a world coming out of hibernation this morning. It’s merely mid-February but spring will not be denied. There’s been no new snow down here below 3000 feet in two weeks. Locals tellme to expect at least one morecold spell and some more snow. Tell that to the budding willows, the crocus blooming in front gardens, the drumming Downy Woodpeckers. The lower parts of the Siskiyous are changing the season far ahead of the calendar. We saw the first returning Tree Swallows yesterday. This morning there were midges floating about in every sunny spot. Though snow remains in the shadows and deep gullies, fern fronds of several inches now droop over the steep slopes of the slick-rock gullies. Down each stone trough runs cold snowmelt. One of the finest sounds of a mountain spring.
As with the stream ever-changing, you cannot hear the same sound twice. The music of the small waterfalls and numerous pools and rapids of these spring freshets are flux. They play us a symphony of soft and rapid percussion with a background sigh of sleeping roots and nodding boughs. None of the hard, note-forcing tympanyand bass drum of the big stream downhill, Ashland Creek in this season is a flood tide, a force from nature, a power not to be denied. The deeper sounds of the big creek are cello, played with gusto and strength. Ashland Creek now preumes to be Mount Ashland’s messenger to the low-lying and the flatlands. By summer it will once again be a gurgling infant. For now, “I am river, hear me roar.”
For the olefactory-centric Bridget this season brings to air some of the lost scents of yore. Ephemeral esters and ethers are liberated from the cold closets in which they were temporarily closed. The smells entrance, enthrall and engage. Bridget is in another, parallel universe of the nose. I can onlylisten and watch and wonder.
The birds sense the change in the air, the streams, the plants upon which they sit, the insects upon which they feed. Gone are the hordes of Robins from earlier inthe week. Now the Hermit Thrush now perches atop his selected brusdh pile and watches with interest. He will not nest here but already practices the diligence, the vigilance, the possession of the pile which will mark his breeding season in the deeper woods.
Location: Upper Granite St.–Ashland
Observation date: 2/16/08
Notes: sunny, warm spring weather
Number of species: 10
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Anna’s Hummingbird 1
Northern Flicker 5
Steller’s Jay 8
Western Scrub-Jay 2
Black-capped Chickadee 4
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 4
Hermit Thrush 5
Spotted Towhee 5
Dark-eyed Junco 17
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)
