It was above 50o F. today, so I took advantage of the relative warmth and sunshine to take a walk. I hoped it would improve the mood, and indeed it did.
But I was not walking quickly, and noticed details I don’t always perceive. A small marsh-willow (non-weeping) had a nest in the fork where three tiny branches met. It was a neat, perfectly woven cup, perhaps two and a half inches in diameter, and I found myself wondering how small a bird must be to occupy such a nest along with her hatchlings. It’s untenanted now, of course, but so well built and anchored that all the winds and storms this winter has presented so far have neither torn nor dislodged it.
A few feet further on I found a young locust. It too had a nest, though not as whole as the first. What intrigued me was that the second nest was braced by a small branch and a thorn long enough that had it not been sharp, it would have qualified as a twig in its own right. The tree itself was part of the bird’s defense, in a way more direct than the usual cloaking leaves. When I was a little girl, I read about thorns being used as pins, but I couldn’t imagine how that worked. The only thorns I’d ever seen were rose or berry thorns, and while those certainly could tear unwary arms, they were too short to fasten anything. But locust thorns make sense. They’re incredibly sharp, easily thin enough to pass through hand-woven fabric, and longer than my quilting pins. Looking at them, I thought that if one drilled a small hole in the flared end that attaches it to the tree, it could serve as quite a serviceable needle as well. I think I’d be more surprised to learn they hadn’t been used so than that they had.
Around the corner, there was an oak in my landlady’s yard. It would have been easy to take the brown bits at the tips of the twigs for a few last leaves the wind had left behind, had they not taken wing in a fluttering whirl. It may be winter, but the tree is still good camouflage for the small brown chirpy birds that brave the cold and snow and wind. Instead of hiding in the leaves, they look very like brown leaves themselves.
And home again, to my boychick on the computer. “Mom, look at this!” It was a picture of a large tornado he’d found on Wikipedia. The things I found outside were smaller and less dramatic. They’ve been there all along. I just wasn’t looking.