A matter of perspective

The forest was especially quiet this morning when Dog and I started our early morning walk. The sunrise was just getting organized, but already showed signs of bad weather ahead. It wasn’t the “red sky” of sailors’ legend, but it was orange and mauve and leaning in the red direction. Perhaps that foretells a puny little storm or a maybe bad storm that won’t hit for a while longer.

The wind was calm, and as the birds woke up and started to sing, the sounds carried for what seemed to me like longer distances than is typical. The pewee’s haunting song is one that winds throughout the forest on any day, and this morning’s moist air carried the notes even further. Who would think that such a tiny little bird could make a sound like that? Perhaps it’s the pitch or the notes, but there’s something about the song that surrounds the air with its song. The cardinal’s song doesn’t carry the way the pewee’s does. The wood thrush song comes close, but I still think the pewee wins that contest. Perhaps it’s the way the pewee holds the notes, when many other birds clip off their notes. I have no answer.

I do know that to me the pewee’s song is every bit as haunting and as lovely as a loon’s. Their song conveys that same eerie mystery of the wild, only their song speaks of the Appalachian forests, if not the northern woods of the loon.

Dog pays no attention, of course. To him the walk reveals nothing of interest—no rabbits, no fox, no squirrels—to capture his attention. He plods beside me, head down, bored.

My photo today was taken a mile or so from the mountain.  I felt the need to see a vista the other day.  The trees are hiding all the ones at the cabin until fall.