April 26, 2026

Happy Birthday, Alex. I'd love to see you.

Took the night off last night.  Needed to just sink into my bed with a book.

 

I did take some photos yesterday during my ride.  There is a 1 year old eagle hanging out at the rookery.

They have a very bad rap in the neighborhood.  I don't think this one will stick around though because there isn't anything really interesting for him there.  There are a few coupled off geese and I believe that the wood ducks have found their nests, but it appears that the convention broke up early this weekend.  Maybe there was a shooter. It's hard to tell.  We'll track this guy, though.  Did not see him today.

This felt like quintessential Greenfield today, a no parking sign next a chair in the middle of a parking lot.   Perfection.

The town is grating the places where the water runs on the road.  There are a couple of creeks that follow the road or come down from the hill and flows into this larger creek which is the source for the ponds and wetland .  I think that the grating is helping the rookery fill up again.  You can see the water line in the pond, and there is this fine green grass growing up throughout it, but it is much fuller than it was last August and there seems to be more food.

A lot of birds up there today in the reeds and trees.  Couldn't see them all, but I could hear them.  Yesterday I watched a piliated jump all over the place up on S. Shelburne; completely avoided being captured.  

Lots of red winged black birds paired off all over the place and the swallows have started to arrive.  My car was filling up with May flies, so the swallows are on time.  

Again there were single turkeys around and Sherry told me she was hearing single turkey voices.  Mating is in full swing in the bird world.  We are just about to fall into May and all the pollen and all the newness and all the greens will come screeching into  the  world.  It's quite exciting and it does help me forget being ill.  

I started this whole practice of taking a ride and documenting my surroundings back in March of 2020 when I was being forced to be alone.  Being alone all the time was an incredible shock to my system and I had to develop a routine that allowed me to do it.  So I began to go for this ride and take pictures and write in a journal keeping track of weather and bird lists and how I felt.  Here I am beginning my 7th year.  Incredible. 

I also may have accomplished two things today.  I may have finished my letter to Yo Yo Ma to ask him to let me interview him on music as community development.  And I may have actually chosen three stories out of  six stories that I've been talking about for years.   I decided today that the day of Andy's and my car accident is one of the stories that defined my life.  I'm going to start writing it.  

Can you see the red bellied woodpecker in the tree?  He was making so
much noise up there.  I tried to get a good picture, but he's too quick.  Love him.