The most disturbing shot of a Tufted Titmouse you have ever seen

Thank you, auto-focus, for completely blurring the Black-capped Chickadee I was attempting to photograph. Were you trying to send me a message? Were you trying to warn me of the true demonic intent of the chickadee's Tufted Titmouse ally? The bird looks as though it is planning - and capable of - world domination.

I only noticed this shot when I downloaded pics from my camera today hoping that I would have got a lovely one of the Red-throated Loon I saw at the Connecticut Audubon's Coastal Center at Milford Point this afternoon.

But I had only photos that frustratingly could never quite capture the beauty of the bird or the late afternoon autumn light.

The whole idea was to find a stunning image because today I didn't have much time for writing. I spent most of it down at the Coastal Center learning about the impact of two amazing people, Noble Proctor (astonishing naturalist, professor, author) and Helen Hays (force of nature, chairwoman of the Great Gull Island Project). A celebration was held for them, and it was beautiful to see how they had changed the lives of everyone they have taught and inspired, from ages 17 to 100. One of the things I love about the birding community is the tradition of mentoring and of having respect for those who have so much to teach us about the natural world.

The sun set over the marsh seemed especially vivid in their honor . . .

A lovely place to get lost

Ever since I can remember, I have needed to sneak away and have time to myself. I was going to say to have time to think, but really, it is time to unthink. I can't even really call it time for myself; it's more like time to escape myself. Somehow when I am immersed in nature, my mind is buzzing and alive, yet crystalline and still. It is the ultimate way to be alone but not lonely: there are the rocks and tree roots, the branches creaking in the wind, a flock of White-throated Sparrows hopping through the undergrowth, a Tufted Titmouse who alights on a branch and fixes you with an inquisitive look.

Tufted Titmouse,  Pond View Preserve, Easton

I felt the call this afternoon, and I needed to go somewhere gentle, somewhere soul soothing. I remembered a map that I had printed of a place that sounded like something out of a fairy tale, with trails that lace around a chain of ponds -- Boulder Island Pond, Deer Trace Pond, Cattail Pond, Sunken Pool, Shadow Pond, Heron Pond, Fawn Pond -- until you reach Moss Hollow. The names evoked such beautiful scenes that reading the map was almost as good as reading a story. And it really was beautiful when I got there.

I took the map but soon got lost. I can get lost driving to do the grocery shopping, so that's nothing new. But this time, I think some part of me took over and got me lost on purpose. When I started out, I was ticking off the ponds -- I saw the boulder, I imagined the deer drinking at the water's edge, watched the cattails waving in the wind. And then without realizing, I had put the map in my pocket and was following the calls of birds instead. I was wending and weaving through corridors of trees, circling my way around ponds glittering in the sunlight. Time became irrelevant.

It was a revelation to discover that this place I had never thought to go birding in before -- Pond View Preserve, in Easton -- is a wonderland of birds. A Merlin shot overhead at an awe-inspiring speed, like a stealth bomber. Two Red-shouldered Hawks wheeled up high, screaming. Barn Swallows swooped above the treetops, chittering away. The warblers were back: Palm Warblers, Black-and-White Warblers, Yellow-rumps. There was the occasional flash of a Goldfinch. American Crows were lurking. A gang of Red-bellied Woodpeckers had colonized the whole place. There were flocks of Chipping Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows. The Robins were laughing; and the Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, and White-breasted Nuthatches were calling. A flash of a bright scarlet male Northern Cardinal flying across my path was followed by the muted tones of a female. There was the grumpy gee-gee sound of the Ruby-crowed Kinglet. And finally, my last bird before I managed to unlose myself and find the parking lot, the bird that made me smile the most: my first Catbird of the season, giving its gravelly mewing call from a tangled thicket. Welcome back, friend!

Red-bellied Woodpecker, Pond View Preserve

The buds of Spring, Pond View Preserve

Day-moon over Pond View Preserve

Pond View Preserve is part of the 127.8-acre Paine Open Space, and you can get to it from Maple Street, Easton. If you can't make it there for a visit, reading the map and drifting away to Moss Hollow in your mind is pretty good for the soul, too.  

Things I am grateful for today

• The common but beautiful birds you see when you're meant to be looking at a rare bird that's been blown off course from the other side of the country, or Scotland, or Greenland, or heaven knows where.
• The Northern Harrier standing on a post out in the field with the rare geese, the afternoon light hitting it in a way that makes you truly see the bird in a way you never have before.
• The four billionth Tufted Titmouse that's zipped past while you're hoping to spot the Mountain Bluebird and that you give in and finally take a look at--that big liquid eye looking right back at you as it cocks it head.
• The Chickadee sitting on a branch above the Calliope Hummingbird that should be basking in Mexico but is inexplicably in snowy shoreline Connecticut. Next to the tiny hummer the Chickadee looks like some gigantic mutant from a 1950s sci-fi movie, "Attack of the 30-foot Chickadee!"
• The people who spot these rare visitors and put the word out so everyone can take a look.
• And the International Bird Rescue Research Center and WildRescue. A disturbed person has captured gulls in San Francisco and put tight collars made of cut-up beer cans around their necks. The IBRRC and WildRescue are doing their best to recapture them, cut the collars from their necks, and release them. It would be easy to dwell on the dark things going through the mind of the person who has been cruel to these birds. But watching the rescuers handle a gull so gently while they remove the collar and check it over is enough to make your heart melt.