During a late August trip out to the marsh, I exited my car and strolled down the gravel path. Where throughout much the early summer months the calls of Red Wing Blackbirds, Common Yellow Throats, Swamp Sparrows, and Song Sparrows had once greeted me; often times surpassing my ability to process and identify the direction of a particular call, this walk fell silent.
Pale yellow Evening Primrose, lavender blooms of Bergamot, showy Ox Eye Sunflowers, and the rustling of acres of Big Blue Stem. The chirp of crickets, grasshoppers and toads. For the first time, I heard the gravel beneath my feet.
The shrill alarms of dozens of nesting Blackbirds replaced with a stunning and almost eerie silence.
Migrating on like retirees escaping the cold of Wisconsin, some of our nomads had already left the marsh. Others remained, but did not make their presence known. Where once Song Sparrows serenaded from shrubs along the path, now they'd turned silent observers of the landscape.
Over the tree tops in the evening, nothing. The progressive growing trills of the gathering Chimney Swifts is simply gone though the irritation that is the insect pests remains. This evening, the red marks along my brow are a testament to this. One or two lonely Barn Swallows remain, almost as if their friends, their family, their colony has abandoned them.
In the sky an approaching V and sudden chorus of brass. A dozen or so Canada Geese approach the wetland. Of course, the marsh is not dead, nor is it empty. Sedge Wrens still chastise me when I venture to close, Cedar Waxwings and American Robins perch en masse above the Oak stand.
Very shortly these friends are likely to depart as well. I've not gone to the marsh in winter. I expect to change this. I imagine that if I am bundled warmly, I will welcome old friends come back from Canada, the Junco, the Siskin, and the Purple Finch. One thing is almost certain, the cyclist who zips by in spring and summer aren't as likely to interrupt my future wanderings.
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