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Friday, October 11, 2002 I've been seated at this table in my dining room for several hours, working. We had a cool, overcast day here in northeast Vermont, mild enough to walk outside wearing a flannel shirt over a t-shirt, cool enough to remind one that it's still October. Most troublesome flying insects have been wiped out by the few days of genuine cold (and a couple of nights of hard frost) that have recently passed through, though some of the bugs that lurk in the grass and sing are still hanging in there. It's nice, that layer of soft sounds amid the general quiet of the afternoons here. Somewhere around 5:30, I looked up from work and saw motion out on the expanse of grass between the house and the barn. Robins. There were robins everywhere, spread out all over the lawn. Probably down from Canada, stopping here for the night on their way south. The robins that summered in these parts took off for warmer climes a few days into September, so it's been several weeks since I've seen them about or heard their voices around the house. I haven't seen a concentration of them like this since April, when there were still patches of snow on the ground and they were newly arrived from their flight north. Probably bitterly regretting leaving palm trees and warm breezes behind, though they seemed gamely intent on ignoring the arctic conditions they'd stumbled into. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen a concentration of robins like I saw earlier. There must have been thirty or forty of them, mostly hunting, taking a few hops, stopping to listen or peer about, maybe spotting a bug and quickly gobbling it down. Flying hundreds of miles probably builds up an appetite. Two or three autumns back, I sat here working one day, happened to look up and noticed a flock of a kind of bird I'd never seen before spread out across the lawn, their feathers a dark brown, slightly mottled with a lighter shades, working their way through the grass, feeding. That particular warm season, the crickets had populated the acreage around the house in particular abundance, singing 24 hours a day. The birds hung around for an hour or two, chowing down intently before taking off. When I went outside after they'd cleared out, all insect noise had been wiped out. The mystery birds had hoovered up every member of the insect world they could find, doing a spectacularly thorough job of it. Made me a bit sad, that, as if all lingering traces of summer had been suddenly eradicated, replaced by the hard silence of the cold season. There's not much mown lawn in these parts. A lot of the countryside is wooded, lots of what's left are fields or hillside meadows – overgrown, not the kind of terrain robins and their ilk can hunt in. A two or three acre spread of mown grass stands out, attracting hungry birds. Any time part of it gets mown, soon as the mower's put back in the garage and everything quiets down, robins show up and begin rounding up food. This afternoon, I made a point of staying inside until the robins cleared out. When I finally stepped outside, I did so prepared for silence, for the absence of crickets and the reality of the cold season coming on. And in the yard here, no insect noise rose from the grass. Further away from the house, though, they carried on, not yet wiped out by those migrating feathered speedsters. It was around 6:30, evening was settling in, and in the trees off across the road robins sang their evening call, something I haven't heard in over a month. The seasons roll on, whether we like it or not. May as well enjoy the show, with its kaleidoscopic changes. rws 7:36 PM [+]
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