Sound Tracking in the Forest

We've had a bit of rain.... and mornings 

with magical mists while I sit drinking 

coffee in the moss garden. 

The same brown mossy hill I photographed in an earlier 

post bejeweled after a rainy night. Today it is back 

to brown, but more rain is expected and this 

hill knows how to sing exuberant songs of green

after a good shower. 

Gentle ferns do a lovely dance with the wind, 

swaying back and forth and dipping into the birdbath, 

kissing the stone bird. Not many birds come to this 

little bath, but the chipmunks who live in the stump

behind it drink here in the morning before Pasha 

is out and about. 

I do love balancing stones in stacks around the gardens, 

though they always lose their little top ones when 

those same chipmunks perch there and eat acorns. 

Though we really could use a week of rain, I have 

been enjoying being outside in warm, dry 

weather. Needing to write on the computer 

today, I had the grand idea of setting up outside 

in the moss garden. It has been such a sanctuary 

this summer and mosquito free. Dappled sunshine all day 

and cool with gentle afternoon breezes. 

Strange and wonderful this world of technology, 

that I could bring my computer outside and still 

check email listening to the Baroque iTunes

channel thanks to invisible waves passing through

my router.... wonder if the sound inaudible to me

 is too much for the dragonflies... 

"Storm at Dusk", watercolor 2009

On Sunday evening I was called out by frog songs and

the just past full moon. Sometimes at night, 

in the midst of doing evening things like 

reading or listening to music, I suddenly silence 

the artificial noises and move outside into the

sounds of frogs or owls or coyotes, 

or light rain on the 

metal roof. 

quick forest sketch

Sometimes the forest sounds are just so...

so soothing and wild that I am reminded of 

  the myriad of creatures living here as they 

sing their night songs. Vast spaces

feel measurable when filled with the far-off call 

of a coyote. Last night I could track the 

path of one as it moved around the forest, 

calling, calling as it traveled. A few 

nights before I heard the clattering 

of a branch as something lighted on it. 

A moment later, as I climbed into bed, 

the owl in a tree just eight feet from 

my window began calling to its mate.

So close I could hear slight resonances 

and nuances in her call that would be 

lost at a distance. Off in the forest, 

just at the edge of my hearing, 

a faint response.  

another drawing from my youth, 

"HawK" - age 18 or so

Day sounds in the forest are often quite 

shrill due to the resident ravens. 

If you've never heard them, they are 

amazingly diverse vocalists. Sometimes

sounding like other corvids - crows mostly- 

but a bit more throaty, and other times 

creating a variety of clicks and shrieks 

that find me shaking my head or laughing. 

three night bugs on a branch

As I sit here, a sweet buzzing of crickets fills 

the night, a clear marking of the seasons 

flowing toward late summer. July is frog songs,

August crickets. The buzz invites me to shrink

and travel the spaces between grasses, 

imagining the night view of a bug.