Seen/Unseen

They are seldom very far away. 

'They' being the squirrels, wild turkeys, deer, the great blue herons, even the elusive foxes. There are birds who swoop through the dooryard, landing in the hybrid magnolias, [juncos, sparrows, nuthatches] others who come in groups to peck at the gravel beyond the front steps; a small 'murder' of crows strut up and down the drive, stride into the garden plot to pluck at the short spears of winter wheat providing a cover crop. 

Bluebirds sway on the power lines, fall down the chimney in springtime, bash at their reflections in windows and car mirrors. 

In late summer goldfinches appear, flashing through the leaning heavy heads of sunflowers, gleaning and gorging until an early autumn storm [or Jim's tractor] flattens the woody stalks. 

Until it toppled in heavy wind two summers ago, a tall jagged spear of a tree trunk, branchless and stripped of bark, attracted a variety of woodpeckers and flickers.

Now they hammer at trees standing deeper in the brushy edges of the ravines. 

The deer are most often seen browsing at the lower end of the property where the ravines move in steeply to enclose on three sides an area of grass and moss. Occasionally they appear in the upper meadow, stepping daintily past the garden, freezing for a second on alert for my stealthy approach, before bounding, tails flicking, to fade into the underbrush.

Hummingbirds zooming around the feeders, a cardinal brilliant against the grey of a winter's day; Canadian geese in a wavering 'V' beating their way across the sky, a sketch of sandhill cranes in migration trailed by the echo their harsh cries. All have their time in the endless turning of the year.

I often stand at a window, seemingly witless or lost in thought, but in reality always scanning  the landscape close by and as far as my sight can reach, alert for the motion of a branch, a scurrying form, the movement of some creature as yet unaware of my watchfulness. 

Sometimes I wonder: how often do they, the creatures, observe me as I go about my chores outside?

I'm clumsy with cameras, lacking the patience to develop skill with a model having the capability for clear zoom shots or detailed close-ups. By the time I've focused on the squirrel perched above the tree hole, or lined up with a parade of turkeys, they have sensed my bumbling presence and scampered, flown, bounded--out of reach and sight.

There remains a lifetime of images imprinted in memory: the red fox loping across the snow-covered west meadow, seen from a window as I took my jacket from its hook in my childhood home;  the great-horned owl hooting at me from the depths of a shag-bark hickory; a woodchuck happily chomping green beans from the very row where I knelt picking; a snipe with her clutch of babies tumbling stilt-legged around my booted feet; a raccoon peering at me between cupped paws when I turned on the porch light at midnight. So many more, caught and framed in memory from different years and different places. 

If the inclination to mindfulness of surroundings, awareness of life moving half-hidden around us is an attribute taught or passed on, I can thank my Dad and my maternal grandfather, both men who were attuned to and often remarked on the natural settings, the wildlife, the seasons, that made up their closely familiar landscapes. 

I like to think that I've passed on something of that enrichment of awareness and appreciation to my own children and grandchildren. 

There are definitely a pair of squirrels spending the winter in the tree hole. They were busy there this morning, popping in and out, but each time I tried to creep up on them for a closer look they either ducked back into the tree or bounded down the hill through the underbrush.

I tried a round about approach but the squirrel who had been at the foot of the tree was wary.

Bare trees sketched against a blue winter sky. Welcome sunshine but the air has a bite.