Homicidal Nature

[akirlu]

Although traffic often bogs there, I love my commute across Lake Washington. The lake itself has infinitely many moods, an amazing range of textures and colors. The surface is elemental, ranging from quicksilver to hematite to slate, the dull sheen of graphite to the glare of burning magnesium. Sometimes Tahoma presides over the southeastern horizon, cloaked in snow and cloud. Just now we're coming into rowing season, and still mornings bring out braces of six- or eight-man crews, the sculls looking like giant insects on the glassy surface.

Birds populate the water. Loons and grebes bob in little rafts. Canada geese fly in low over the highway. At sunset, over the arboretum, the crows congregate and darken the skies and wheel out over the water.

Today, I saw an eagle. He was maybe all of thirty yards away, low over the water at the center of the lake. His head and tail were full white, a mature adult. A pair of crows were harassing him, just exactly the way jays harass crows, and so on down the food chain.

I slowed down almost enough to slow traffic, and nearly wandered into the next lane, all without even being conscious of it. Those who know me will have a sense of the magnitude of my distraction...

Comments

[larryhammer]

Rumors of Spring.

---L.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Good story, good links. Here's a tiny bird-related story in exchange:

When billzilla and I went west for Corflu Wave (believe me, we do occasionally travel without a Corflu being involved), we went early to stay in Monterey for a while, then drove north to the Bay Area. Of course he scanned constantly for birds (this is why I drive a lot when we drive together). At one place along the way, he gazed through the binocs and gasped. "Hey, you have to look at this! A Western grebe!" There it was, all alone. "I've never seen one before! What an excellent sighting! That's so cool!" He remarked on it again later as he made notes.

And then the next day at a different stop, we saw... eight Western Grebes. And the next day... twelve Western Grebes. By then it was a running gag. The buggers were everywhere. We started to point and gasp in mock admiration: "LOOK! A Western Grebe!" And then we'd giggle ourselves silly.

That joke still works on billzilla, although it sometimes provokes him to tickle me unmercifully. The birds were still cool to see... we just wished we hadn't been quite so over-impressed by the first!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

You slowed to a crawl...? You wandered...! Da...ahmn!

I can well imagine all of that. You'll understand, that glad as I am to be home, I miss Seattle and environs (even to the point of telling someone I could learn to live with the brooding menace of Ranier).

Last week I was in Morro Bay (n.b. A horse who likes the surf's edge is a running wonder, but when he insists on staying just inside the receding foam line, one feels as though the world is out of joint, vertigo ensues... but it's worth it) and the birds were grand.

Just up the road from Maia's place is a sanctuary, and the edge of the road has a rill, choked with cat-tails and inhabited by red-winged blackbirds; squabbling for territory and harassing the egrets.

The egrets are some of the most amazing birds it has ever been my pleasure to see take wing. That prissy walk, the sudden; and delicate stabs for supper are nothing on the crouch and flex they use to take the air. The easy sweep of those huge wings, with so much lift the body bobs up and down, and then the easy glide to *poof* a standing rest in a new piece of water.

But the prize of the week was the morning I went scrabbling for camera, to capture the green grass, and the Great Blue Heron standing in the yard.

They just seem to be in the air, sailing away as though there was no effort in it.

Next year I'll make a day of it, and just stand and watch the light and the birds, until I'm out of film, or light.

TK

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall that Carrie Root has written about this same driving experience. In Spent Brass perhaps? And later included, or at least given honourable mention, in a fanthology? It must be something special.