Heidi Watts

 A few years ago, in early May, when the sun was surprisingly warm, and the trees newly leaved in a golden green, I took a walk into the woods on an old walking trail. I had been walking for about thirty minutes when a bird flew out of the brush front of me. I froze in my tracks. To my surprise, instead of assuming the “if I don’t move you won’t see me pose”, or flying off, the bird began advancing toward me very slowly.  It was a ruffed grouse,  the size of a very small chicken, with stripped reddish brown and white neck feathers, a wide fan shaped tail with a bright black border ,and a little crown or tuft on the head.  The brown and white stripes in her feathers gleamed in the sunlight and occasionally she spread her tail out like a black-bordered fan. I stayed as still as I could – how often do I encounter a creature in the wild? – as she advanced very slowly, until she was about six feet from me. Then, still strutting very slowly, bobbing her head and and displa...

  My name is “Old Beady Eye and this is my story.   I am a heron, a great blue heron, one of the tallest creatures on this shoreline, tall, silent, regal, and you may never notice me, because I have the power of such steadiness that your eyes may slide right over me and beyond.  Only if I make a move, stab my long beak into the water   in one quick jab to catch a little silver glimmer, a fish perhaps, or a small sneaky crab sideling silently through the shallows,   or I may decide enough is enough and silently raise my great wings to leave the scene – only then will you notice me. You will say, “Oh, Look, there’s the great blue heron”, but I will be gone before your companion notices me. My power comes from concentration, though a sharp beak, reflexes faster than the   speed of light,   and large loft bearing wings also help. I earn my dinners by doing nothing. I sail overhead, locate a hopeful bit of shallow water, glide in for a landing as quietly as...

I look out the window in the kitchen and what do I see? I really woke up on this morning, when a passing  glance out the window and across the cove revealed a small movement in the little cluster of tall, supple poplar trees, disappearing into the grove of bent and stunted hemlocks indigenous to these islands.  I am alone on this no longer inhabited island in the north Atlantic and, for one thing, there should not be poplar trees. The islands are largely spruce and hemlock, with only an occasional deciduous tree: these foreign trees must have been planted by the first descendants of the first settlers a little over 100 years ago. And, there should not be an unfamiliar movement in those trees.  As I watch anxiously a largish black bird waddles out of the underbrush followed by a procession of small black creatures – ah! ducklings.  Mama Duck (we must assume it was a mama) was headed straight for the water and in a long line, reminiscent of a kindergarten teacher lea...

Warblers are irritating, and that’s the truth. It’s a beautiful spring morning, the mist just disappearing and the sun promising a full Monty. I take my binoculars and stroll quietly down to the mailboxes and, just like yesterday, there is a yellow warbler singing full bore, "whichety, whichety, whichety." Where? Must be right there in that bush. But I can’t see it. No. Have I ever seen that bird there? No. She/he flits from branch to branch veiled by the baby yellow-green leaves of spring, barely hatched. The sound has moved. I try to scan with the binoculars. The sound is close, here by my ear, no, over there to the right, "whitchety, whitchety, whichetey…" out of the corner of my right eye I see a tease of yellow.   Ok, be like that. I’ll try another spot. I walk slowly up the trail, listening for sound, looking for another swipe of yellow, or any color on the wing, and at the crest of the hill, right there on the lowest branch of the big maple, right where t...

Can you believe it? This morning at the feeder I had two pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks, a pair of cardinals, a mess of goldfinches, a crowd of blue jays, (maybe twenty) a Baltimore oriole (I have never seen one at the feeder before) and an Indigo Bunting   (gorgeous; even less likely than the oriole.) There were also the regulars, of course, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, titmice, and four varieties of sparrows. But who expects wild tropical colors on North American birds? At a feeder, for heaven’s sake! This spring I spent hours at the kitchen window with my binoculars and my Sibley, and from this dedication I have been rewarded by learning how to distinguish those confusing little sparrows, and by building a relationship with Mickey. Mickey is a large gray squirrel with too many brains. I bought all the state-of-the-art bird feeders guaranteed to be squirrel proof and each time a new one arrived Mickey managed to beat the system. Some times it took him only a...