Author: synthyris

So last summer I was out on a walk, and I veered off the paved trail to explore a promising path in the grass, and it led me up through the waist-high golden rye of summer (which in my region has escaped cultivation to become a noxious weed), then through a few willow bushes, then down a short slope and out onto a tall stony plateau overlooking the water, which lapped on a pocket of sandy beach. The sun was bright, the water was blue, and the little beach, bordered by a matching plateau on the other end, was delightful. The stone underfoot was solid and nearly flat on top, a dark gray lichen-splotched basalt with various shallow humps and hollows, and on one of these humps I spied a little sock.

Continue reading “Rocks in Socks, or, Here Be Dragons!”

Answer: a brick!

Ha ha!

No matter how often I hear it, I find this joke perennially funny.

It sprang to mind because the color red has figured in my adventures lately.

Not long ago I went to an event that involved a lot of people walking across a bridge. A boat zoomed past below with rainbows in its spray. A small airplane zoomed past above in festive mode. Someone exclaimed, “A nest!” and I looked up and saw a circular bulk of sticks on some intersecting girders overhead. Nearby, someone else spotted a dead fish on a support beam, possibly dropped by an osprey. As I walked along, I noticed a few small car-related thing-a-ma-bobbules in various cracks and crannies, as if they had sprung mischievously from their moorings as their vehicle jounced and rumbled across the bridge. Most people just walked fast and looked straight ahead, or engaged in loud conversation with their companions, but I noticed one young person whose pockets were bulging with obviously heavy objects and who was scanning the bridge deck, as well as everything around themself, with intense interest. Just as I drew level with them, they spied a huge bolt, likely from a truck, it was so big.

Continue reading “What’s red and bad for your teeth?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been surprised by a puzzling bird call and said something like “Isn’t this a strange place to find a killdeer?” or “I had no idea there were meadowlarks around here,” only to look up and spy a gaggle of starlings perched on a telephone wire or in the top of a tree, quite obviously the source of the sound. I take this as an invitation to stop and listen to one of the most accomplished mimics in nature. Unlike many birds, starlings continue learning new songs throughout their life, and I have heard long sequences composed of many different bird calls strung together, rendered so accurately that each one can be clearly identified.

Continue reading “Mozart had a pet starling”

A week or so before the winter solstice, the bright sunshine lured me out for a long walk, despite the cold air. I took a trail along the edge of the water, and as I passed an alder tree growing out of the rocky bank, I spotted some small birds among the twigs on its far side. I looked through my binoculars and was thrilled to see several American Goldfinches picking the tiny seeds out of the alder cones, which were so thick on the branches that the tree was as festive as any holiday-minded person could desire, at least in my opinion. The little finches were in their winter plumage, which is a soft pale yellowy tan, with wings striped dark brown and light tan, and soft white undersides, and they were clinging on upside-down, or sideways, or whatever it took to get to the seeds, outlined by the shine of the water beyond. And as I was standing there watching them, a little kid on a little bike came riding along, followed by a watchful dad on foot. Just as the kid passed behind me, they said to their dad, “Are they watching birds or pirates?”

Continue reading “Walking with pirates”

Yesterday I got out my little toy fir trees, cleared a shelf on my bookcase, and set up a forest scene. I call this the Forest of Possibilities. I put a few small plastic animals among the trees as wild inhabitants, and I gave one tree a string of tiny battery-powered lights and a small white star on top, not for Christmas or any other religious holiday, but to invoke the magic of the winter solstice and the turn of the seasons back toward spring.

Continue reading “I think a dolly loves me”