Watching and Waiting

October on Roundtop is usually marked by gorgeous sunny days surrounded by rain and fog.  Sunday I had the gorgeous weather; today I have the rain and fog.  I am awaiting the first juncos of the season, which can be expected at any moment, though perhaps not in this weather.  I have also yet to see many flocks of migrating waterfowl.  They are not late, at least not yet, though I might have expected to see more of them by now. I did have a lone pied-billed grebe last week, but one of anything is hardly full-scale migration.

The shortening hours of daylight make looking for birds on any but a weekend day more difficult now.  The chickens go to roost by before 6:30 p.m. now and likely will go earlier today in this gray weather.  Evening birdwatching is no longer possible for me.  By the time I get home, run the dogs and grab a bite to eat, only the crows are still out. I’m still getting used to that again. I can always forego dinner but the time I get home and the dogs need to go out can’t be changed.
For roughly the past week the improvement in my view (otherwise known as leaf drop) hasn’t changed much.  A few afternoons were breezy, and if those leaves had the slightest inclination to fall to the ground, they would have.  I am therefore stymied in my desire to see the western mountains reappear through the thick forest canopy.  I know it won’t be long before the view opens up, so I need to be patient about it. This is a bit like “a watched pot never boils” but with leaves.  “A watched tree never drops its leaves” doesn’t have quite the same ring but seems just as true. Maybe next week.