Towhee Day

After a less-than-satisfying expedition to the Museum of Natural History earlier, I decided that I was going to go up into the hills, knee or no knee, mood or no mood, because it's the last chance before I start gallivanting around and miss berry season.

Up we went, bearing only a bottle of water and our hats.

One ripe blackberry on one of the bushes clinging to rocks on a hillside path. Up, good exercise, my mood seeming to improve with every foot of altitude gained.

No blackcaps. We thought at first that someone had come in and chopped down the thicket where we gathered so much a fortnight earlier, because there was nothing there. On closer examination, it was just a careless tramping in to get at the bushes, which now bore only the last, dried-out remnants.

A fortnight is a long time, in summer, if you're a fruiting plant.

We were between seasons--late for black raspberries, early for blackberries--but we were up in the hills on a bright summer afternoon, green and blue and white, birds calling behind the leaves.

Andy stopped me, and pointed out a towhee on a branch. We hear them all the time, but almost never see them.

This towhee perched there, unconcerned with our presence, and sang. We watched it a while, then walked along.

A few feet down the path, I noticed a bird in the undergrowth, beating at the fallen leaves, stirring them up, looking quite nervous but actually systematic. We watched it as it moved along, still stirring up the leaves. A young towhee! At a guess, the child of the one we saw on the branch: that would explain why the singer stayed put, either to watch its fledgling or to keep our attention on itself, safely in the tree, and away from the youngster on the ground.

Elsewhere in the woods, still no blackberries, we saw another pair of towhees, again a parent and a youngster.

A great stroke of luck, being in the woods on Towhee Day.

It's not announced, maybe not even to the towhees, and I suspect they don't hold it every year: we were there the day the towhee fledglings left the nests, and got to see them, and the parents singing, in the bright July sun.

There's more to summer than fruit, even fresh berries.

And maybe there will be blackberries left when I return from Britain.

(Note--this is backdated to when it occurred.)

Towhee Day

After a less-than-satisfying expedition to the Museum of Natural History earlier, I decided that I was going to go up into the hills, knee or no knee, mood or no mood, because it's the last chance before I start gallivanting around and miss berry season.

Up we went, bearing only a bottle of water and our hats.

One ripe blackberry on one of the bushes clinging to rocks on a hillside path. Up, good exercise, my mood seeming to improve with every foot of altitude gained.

No blackcaps. We thought at first that someone had come in and chopped down the thicket where we gathered so much a fortnight earlier, because there was nothing there. On closer examination, it was just a careless tramping in to get at the bushes, which now bore only the last, dried-out remnants.

A fortnight is a long time, in summer, if you're a fruiting plant.

We were between seasons--late for black raspberries, early for blackberries--but we were up in the hills on a bright summer afternoon, green and blue and white, birds calling behind the leaves.

Andy stopped me, and pointed out a towhee on a branch. We hear them all the time, but almost never see them.

This towhee perched there, unconcerned with our presence, and sang. We watched it a while, then walked along.

A few feet down the path, I noticed a bird in the undergrowth, beating at the fallen leaves, stirring them up, looking quite nervous but actually systematic. We watched it as it moved along, still stirring up the leaves. A young towhee! At a guess, the child of the one we saw on the branch: that would explain why the singer stayed put, either to watch its fledgling or to keep our attention on itself, safely in the tree, and away from the youngster on the ground.

Elsewhere in the woods, still no blackberries, we saw another pair of towhees, again a parent and a youngster.

A great stroke of luck, being in the woods on Towhee Day.

It's not announced, maybe not even to the towhees, and I suspect they don't hold it every year: we were there the day the towhee fledglings left the nests, and got to see them, and the parents singing, in the bright July sun.

There's more to summer than fruit, even fresh berries.

And maybe there will be blackberries left when I return from Britain.

(Note--this is backdated to when it occurred.)