"One Misty Moisty Morning"

After the non-stop sunshine of Texas it was a delight to come back to a “misty, moisty, morning” on the Cape. Fog had rolled in, a slight mist was falling, and because this cottage has a wall of windows that allows the entire lake to be seen, I could sit here with a cup of coffee and be enchanted by views of the swans swimming into view through wisps of fog. Then the rack of Buffleheads and the Ring Necks all started to appear out of the mist. The kind of view that makes me weep with the beauty of it.

It’s amazing how, even though I can see it all perfectly from inside where it is warm and dry, I still feel compelled to pull on boots and head out to be “in” it. As soon as I got outside I could hear a White Throated Sparrow singing its “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody” song. I know I have written about it before, how it’s one of the songbirds that must “learn” its song from listening to other males. It’s the way that you can tell if you are hearing an adult White Throated or a juvenile male. The younger sparrow often doesn’t have the whole song down.

I used to hear one in my old yard that would keep repeating the beginning “Old Sam, Old Sam, Old Sam peee” but that was as far as it got. Now, in this cottage, I hear what still seems to be a young bird, but further along in its lessons, now that it is fall. For a good half hour it kept repeating the song, coming up with the whole cadence half way through its concert, repeating it correctly several times.

Now, the interesting thing is, this is fall, not really the time for singing to impress the ladies, but I remember reading once in Edwin Way Teale’s book, “A Walk Through the Year” that he too heard a White Throated Sparrow singing away on a foggy day in fall. He thought that it might be because the weather reminded it of its nesting grounds in the cold, often drippy, northern reaches of Canada and so it set it to singing. I wonder. Either way, I was glad to hear it and the same thing was repeated the next day when the weather still was wet and cool. Then we had a spell of “Indian summer” days and not a word from my sparrow. Interesting.

Other “winter” birds that have arrived of late, the Dark Eyed Junco’s, “snowbirds”, have settled in, and the shrubs that border the bog I walk around are alive with the “tick tick” sound they make and the flash of black and white tail feathers you see when they fly. Noting the arrival of “Snowbirds” in the fall and their exit in the spring is something I will miss in Texas. But there will be the comings and goings of western birds to learn to look for. Still, I was happy to have one last season to see these.

And, oh, the Golden Crowned Kinglets are flitting about right out my window. Second smallest bird after the hummingbird, they too come from the north and mix with flocks of chickadees and titmice here. And here is something I had never noticed before, how they flutter at the end of the branches, almost hummingbird-like. At least the one in my yard is doing that. They are searching out wintering insect egg sacs, spiders etc on the branches and as this one fluttered under one branch end after another. I wished I had super strong binoculars to see if it was actually finding anything there. Between it’s moving too fast to be seen, and my inability to focus quickly enough on the new spot it was occupying, I was never able to see if it was eating. Either way it was a treat to see it at all, for often they are too high in the tree to make out anything but their shape and hear their cal. It is slightly higher than the chickadees, often a repeated “tzee, tzee, tzee”, and it is the three times “tzee” that makes you pretty sure it is them.

One last delight and I will let you go, another otter sighting! Right out the window, but only briefly, a floating “brown log” that flipped its “wider than a muskrat, narrower than a beaver, tail” and disappeared. We don’t have beavers on the Cape and muskrats more often swim at the surface and would never have presented such a long body so I am sure it was an otter. And that sort of thing can keep me happy for weeks! And peeled. I keep returning to the spot and, of course, it isn’t there. Otters cover a lot of territory to meet their heavy feeding demands, so seeing one in the same spot isn’t likely, but still. It may cycle around this way again.

Today is also a gray, but warm November day. I shall cherish each gray day for I fear a paucity of them in Texas. If it’s “a misty moisty morning” where you are, may you find it equally beautiful. For you who treasure nursery rhymes as much as I do, I believe that comes from Mother Goose.

“One misty moisty morning
when cloudy was the weather
I chanced to meet an old man clothed all in leather.
Clothed all in leather from his feet(?) to his chin
with a “How do you do?” and a “How do you do?
and a “How do you do?” again”.