Bird Calendars
NOTES FROM NATURE
By Jerry Toll
A Birder's Christmas Season
`Tis the weeks `round Christmas, when all through the land
Every birder is stirring, everyone who can!
The captains are thinking of their quadrants so fair,
"Will I have enough people? Will I have enough there?"
The longjohns and mittens are laid out with great care,
`Fore 5:00 comes early, with owling, I'm there!
Three species of owl we have by 7:00,
Daylight comes, this sunrise is heaven!
The species count rises now fast, now slow,
If it don't' pick up soon, we'll be abysmally low.
We stop at feeders maintained for years
By friends of the count who draw us near.
They greet us with cocoa, cookie, a warm hearth,
The hearth is warm but not so warm as our hearts.
We see many birds and are excited by two or three,
But we go `cause a Saw-whet is possible in some cedar tree.
The lakes are all but frozen, just two nights hence,
Most waterfowl absconded in the interim, since.
We wish and we wish but it don't change a thing,
We could've counted three days `fore the weather's changing.
The sky darkens, the sky lightens, then darkens with snow.
We fear we must stop `fore the snow is our foe.
We drive past barren field whose harvest is long past,
But holds for us promise of a different harvest. At last!
They are in the road, the object of our huntings,
Lots of Longspurs, clouds of Horned Larks and yes, Snow Buntings!
`Fore they were driven to the road by the snow,
you see,`tis the way on these counties,
When one door closes more may open with great bounty.
The day wanes, the birds roost out of sight,
Now on to the tally, day has become night,
Amid jibes and mysteries and stories we wrought,
We discover what our joyous labors have brought.
On Harlan and Seward and Wachiska and such,
On DeSoto and Kearney and Calamus and Scottsbluff!
Can I do one, or two, or maybe even three?
I shall do Christmas counts `till I fall to my knees!
Then on to Big Mac! Oh, what bliss,
The rare and the many and the varied. Not one to miss.
The season is done, not much left to see,
Ah, but next season, next season,
holds out to us hope of "what may yet be."
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01/24/08