Life in the woods has been busy since I last posted. I’ve been busy with a different project, which I hope will bear its own fruit in time.

The floating auras of mosquitoes which one acquires in our woods have been reduced, although they’ve been supplemented by the flies which zip around our head and occasionally bury themselves in our hair. I try to always remember a hat so I’m not constantly running my hands over my head. Back in June I almost walked into a spider web. I bent down to watch the spider tend to a long-legged fly. A mosquito hovered into view and I automatically blew it away, right into the web. She flew this way and that, seemingly about to break free, but then the spider hustled over. It spun the mosquito around while wrapping her in silk. Finished, the spider settled down between its two prizes. I left with a small feeling of satisfaction.

Many, though not all, of our migratory birds are also engaged in eating insects. The forest is still filled with bird sounds, but much less of them are songs. Bird families keep together with chatter as they forage. The robins in the woodshed fledged in mid-June. Three fat robins were crowded into the nest one day and the nest was empty the next, the wall white-washed with droppings. A raucous family of titmice has been patronizing the feeders at my mother in-law’s house since about the same time. The cats and the baby get very excited at their fluttering arrivals (“Bir! Bir!).

Blackbirds no longer tied to a nest are shifting around the landscape in large flocks. When we walk in the evenings, they move overhead from forage to roost in waves of clouds, if I may be allowed to mix metaphors. Flocks of grackles regularly invade patches of the forest. The woods come alive with them moving from ground to tree to tree in every direction, brown young birds with a faint sheen mixed with their iridescent elders. Suddenly the balance shifts and they blow through like a wind as they leave.