Perfect Fall Days

Perfect fall days are a particular torture.

            Perfect: Blue sky, cool, sun, a crisp snap to the air. Apple days. Cliched days.

            Torture: You know they won’t last. There’s nothing you can do to properly celebrate them, short of being outside all day. And even then a sense of desperation tugs at my skin.

When I was younger the only way to do justice to these days was to rock climb. Sitting on a ledge, looking down into a valley of yellow, orange and red tinged trees, while the turkey vultures soared below me was heaven. The pull and tug of climbing, the sore fingertips, the dusty smell of chalk on my hands all aligned with the wrestle with the day, which was the wrestle of my soul. The way I knew I had taken all the day had to offer was walking out at dusk or in the dark, the clank of climbing gear a sort of music. My climbing partner and I were always hungry and tired and satisfied.

Now, since I climb little, I am learning new ways to swallow these days. On Saturday Peter and I started our bird search, which was really a sparrow search, at Southlands, a large horse farm south of Rhinebeck, New York. There are fields of uncut grasses, and in them sparrows sprung up, allowing us a peak: Savannah, White-throated, Field, Song, Chipping, and one special Lincoln’s. A kestrel—my favorite little falcon—soared from one end of a wide field to the other. We heard pileated, red-bellied, downy and hairy woodpeckers in the woods. It was beautiful. And after three hours of walk, it wasn’t enough.

So we drove north to Rockefeller Lane. This road runs beside Greig Farm, which in this season is putting up beautiful lettuce, celery and not much else. Some of the fields are left fallow. From all of the rain earlier in the fall, puddles remain. Just as we were following a few pipet-looking birds, a flock of five shorebirds circled in front of us. “Those are good birds,” Peter said as we followed them with our bins. “Keep an eye on them.” They circled and circled. “Land,” Peter whispered, willing them to ground. And sure enough, they landed in a large puddle about 150 feet in front of us. I stayed put with the scope, while Peter inched forward with his camera. I saw two pectoral sandpipers and a least sandpiper (that shorebird workshop paid off!). And then there was something else amidst these birds. It had blue grey wings, a white belly, a dark stout bill. A phalarope. But what sort. Phalaropes do not frequent this part of the state, so it’s not a species Peter knew well. Peter’s first guess was a Red, and countless emails and analyzing his photos later he decides the first instinct was correct. 

A red phalarope is an uncommon bird anywhere, and in this area, downright rare. Seeing the phalarope added to the exhilaration of the day: there were treasures out there to be seen! So after a short break we had to be out once again. We drove to the road to Cruger Island. The passageway there was thick with mud. We walked out with a duck hunter wearing camouflaged waders; duck season has begun. Out by the island a tin boat lurked with four hunters waiting near their decoys. In the distance the shot of a gun. This wasn’t how I intended our day to end, with the birds I had sought all day being shot from the sky.

We walked the train tracks, skirting the South Tivoli Bay. Mute swans graced the far shore, mallards hid, a few blue herons stood stock still in the shallow water. Five coots, unusual at this time of the year, bobbed together, their white bills evident from a distance.

The sun headed west. We headed home. A fat moon rose. A perfect day had ended as it should: walking out in the dark. There was no clank of gear or smell of chalked hands, but rather the squish of our rubber boots in the mud, and the silence as we listened for owls.