March 27, 1842.
Sunday. The eye must be firmly anchored to this earth which beholds birches and pines waving in the breeze in a certain light, a serene rippling light.
Cliffs. — Two little hawks have just come out to play, like butterflies rising one above the other in endless alternation far below me. They swoop from side to side in the broad basin of the tree-tops, with wider and wider surges, as if swung by an invisible pendulum. They stoop down on this side and scale up on that.
Suddenly I look up and see a new bird, probably an eagle, quite above me, laboring with the wind not more than forty rods off. It was the largest bird of the falcon kind I ever saw. I was never so impressed by any flight. She sailed the air, and fell back from time to time like a ship on her beam ends, holding her talons up as if ready for the arrows. I never allowed before for the grotesque attitudes of our national bird.
The eagle must have an educated eye.
-H.D.T.
March 27, 2021.
a.m. My wife sees the neighborhood fox in our yard stalking our chicken coop. The spring crocus and striped squill are up, and a daffodil full with yellow buds.
At 5 p.m. I jump out of the car to get a better view of a hawk flying high toward Bear Garden Hill, but it disappears out of sight. Mottled, variegated clouds hang in the sky, indicating the changing weather toward tomorrow’s predicted rain. Very high, I see a large black silhouette of a raptor gliding in the sky, far too high to identify further. My underlying anxiety from the busyness of my day slowly fades as I walk through the dappled light of the falling sun through the tall pines.
I climb and explore the lower western wall of the cliffs while waiting for a friend and his boys, who have decided to join me. Where the icy pipe organ once grew, last seen on March 4, water now seeps and drips; is this fount perennial? The impressive crag hosts numbers of shelves out of which small trees grow and overhanging rock canopies which could provide shelter from a rain. One large rounded wall is covered with a mass of smooth rock tripe, now dry and appearing as if a vertical layer of withered leaves like on the forest floor.
Our now-united team climbs the steep Devil’s Staircase and onto the rocky platform above Fairhaven Cliffs for our views. Immediately above are two of the black long-winged raptors I saw earlier - clear and identifiable now through my binoculars due their bald red heads: turkey vultures. They glide west over the river and then downstream to join four or five others, perhaps over Route 2, soaring and riding the thermal currents. After some time, two in the group glide back just above us on the cliff, as if to voluntarily showcase their talents again for a photo. So many will grimace at the mention of these birds, calling them grotesque, probably in simultaneous response to their shockingly bald red heads and diet of dead meat - so often road kill. But, from this view today, the birds are majestic in their own right.
The sunset sky tonight is striking - a streaked pattern of pinkish-orange and intermittent blue, with a dome of purple blue above. As I drive west along Main Street, I feel compelled to stop at the historic Thoreau house to capture a photo of the serene display.
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