Sunday, March 14, 2010

Turkey vultures and chipmunks and strange rolls of snow.....

"Ridge at Dusk", watercolor, at the Mulford Gallery
in Rockland, Maine. www.mulfordgallery.com


Today is a dark, cold and damp day, much like the image above..... we've had a few of these in a row. The damp cold that seeps into the bones... It rained all night and then, sometime in the wee hours, it turned to snow. This morning the hood of the car had the most curious roll of snow on it. As the temperature warmed a bit towards morning, the 2 or so inches of snow on top of the car got heavy and rolled over in a perfect egg roll that stopped at the hood of the car. It was a funny thing to look out at in my still sleepy state. I couldn't quite figure out what I was looking at. When I finally figured it out, I wished I had remembered the batteries for the digital camera... it was really quite funny- a perfect roll of thin snow.

The warmth of spring of a few days back has completely vanished, though the songs of the birds still sound joyfully optimistic. Yesterday, while driving home from the dump, I saw the familiar tilt of a soaring vulture. That and seeing that the chipmunks are running about again are sure signs that the season is shifting. Turkey vultures are one of the true harbingers of spring. There's enough unfrozen meat around for them now to survive and clean up what is slowly being uncovered with the melting snow. I've read that their stomach acid is so intense that they can digest anthrax. They are such a crucial part of keeping disease at bay, too bad they're not understood or appreciated. They are lovely to watch soar on the high thermals, tilting back and forth, their v shaped silhouette jet black in the sky.

1 comment:

Umā said...

Beautiful watercolor, just beautiful!