Thursday, August 18, 2011

WARBLER AT MY WINDOW


There's a digital clock at my bedside—and the first thing I do when roused by body aches or bad dreams, is look to see what vile hour I've been so cruelly and prematurely awakened.  This morning the glowing turquoise numbers read 4:11 a.m.  

Since I hadn't gotten to bed until long after midnight, I closed my eyes and tried to will myself back to sleep—which didn't work any better than it usually does. When I reached some nether-world state of oblivion where I found myself counting dead fishermen—angling companions, mentors, guides, and fellow piscatorial writers, none of whom would I ever again share time on the water with this side of the River Styx—I decided I'd better get up or else face the day depressed as well as exhausted. 

That was at 5:08 a.m. Unless you have reason to be up at such time, or suffer from a similar caducity-gift of insomnia, let me inform you that this is a bleak, empty, and still utterly dark hour. Good only for the occasional skulking raccoon making their way homeward from another night of neighborhood burglarizing. Even the katydids had fallen silent.

For a while, without turning on a light, I sat in the rocking chair and, via my iPod, did my typical digital morning check of the world-at-large…email, weather, Facebook, a blog or two—then CNN, FOX, Drudge, and similar sites for what passes as news, but is often mere rumor, opinion, party politics, gossip, vested-interest spin, and pure sleaze. Upon reaching my gag limit of such fare, I got up, washed my hands, made coffee, and carried the steaming cup of life-giving brew to my study, where I figured to putter around until time to prepare breakfast.

It began getting light about 6:00 a.m. A half hour later, just before I headed down the hall to wake Myladylove and Moon-the-Dog, there sounded a pecking at my deskside window. In the gloom, I was immediately reminded of Poe's raven—except this was a small and decidedly scruffy Northern Parula Warbler, though whether also a bird or portent, I couldn't say; perhaps the day ahead will reveal the answer. 

I snapped a quick silhouette portrait. Then I awoke the remaining members of the household and decided scrambled eggs and biscuits seemed appropriate fare. 

It is now going on noon. Myladylove is long at her work, Moon-the-Dog is back asleep. I've taken the trash toter and recycle bin up the hill for pickup, consumed a second cup of coffee, and am currently trying to decided whether I want to amble up the street and check out several garage sales or go back to bed. I don't feel as awful as I expected…though maybe that will come later. And I also haven't figured out if that early-arriving warbler came pecking at my window out of friendliness, or had some message to impart.

I think this way when I'm sleepy… 
———————

14 comments:

Carolyn H said...

Great post, Griz!

And that reminds me that it's time to start looking for warblers again. My morning walks are usually filled with bad dogs, whitetails and running foxes. Time to look for something else.

Jain said...

Oh gosh, Grizz, your early mornings sound so much like many of mine! Except sometimes 4:11 a.m. is mid-day for me.

Great pic of the warbler, love the glow behind him/her. To what do you attribute the scruffiness?

Grizz………… said...

Carolyn…

I've been seeing warblers pretty regularly for about a week now. Guess it is that time again. BTW, the only reason I managed to identify this bird—as opposed to those two a couple of posts back, one of which I also thought was a Parula—was that a moment after taking the shot you see, the bird flew onto a nearby high limb which had considerably more early light…though I wasn't quick enough to get a good pix in that pose.

Kelly said...

...entertaining post, Grizz. Hope you sleep better tonight. It's pretty cool to hear a warbler pecking at your window, though. It almost makes that early hour worthwhile (...almost)! I love the silhouette and that green glow!

Grizz………… said...

Jain…

Well, I guess it's good to hear I'm not the only one who pulls these stunts—but I wouldn't wish such behavior on an enemy, let alone a friend and fellow river rat. I've never slept a lot, but I sure feel better when I get my usual 5–6 hours.

You know, I'm also puzzled about the bird's scruffiness. I took a dozen or so shots, some in better light (though they weren't better shots), plus I got a few good looks—and the warbler was definitely as scruffy as it appears in the silhouette. There's wasn't much a dew. So unless it had managed to get wet som other way, I'm wondering if it was just molting (warblers do molt before flying to winter quarters, right?) or had picked itself because of mites or the like. That's my best guess—well, guesses. Any other ideas?

Grizz………… said...

Kelly…

My suffering is simply fodder for your amusement… ;-D And trust me, while a window-pecking warbler is indeed neat, it's a thrill best experienced vicariously via words and photos from the poor schmuck who couldn't sleep and hauled his aging carcass up to bring you this report. Especially not when you consider how wretched said schmuck currently feels.

In the photo, the warbler had hopped up from the window ledge where it did its pecking (the ledge being below the level of my desk, impossible to get a good shot) onto a canna lily leaf about four inches from the glass but a two feet above the ledge. I'm thus shooting slightly upwards, and the green glow is early light through sycamore leaves on a tree leaning over the river. I liked the sort of backlit spot effect.

Robin said...

You sound sad.

Grizz………… said...

Robin…

No, I'm not, really, though thank you for asking. Mostly just tried.

But I'm also my own worst enemy, and I know—having ample experience—that if I spend too much time wallowing in the past, worrying about and replaying things I cannot change, that I will be sad, and given time to work at it, deeply depressed. I can easily ruin an entire week for no good reason other than getting caught up in my own head game. And to be perfectly honest, I go through periods where two or three things in a row go wrong, I become overly reflective, count my failures instead of my blessings, factor diminishing time and health into the equation, and become thoroughly disappointed and dejected by myself, my failures, blah, blah, blah. A real pity party. Sometimes it's really hard being the man I want to be…or even the man I am—you know?

Arija said...

Hi fellow insomniac. If I have a string of nights like that, I do need a decent nap in the afternoon.
It does help to get up for an hour and do some work and then seek the horizontal position. One often goes straight back to sleep. If you stay recumbent, you just toss and turn and have no chance at all.

Grizz………… said...

Arija…

Yup, you're absolutely right…staying in bed seldom works. Sometimes just moving elsewhere is all it takes—say from the bed to the couch. Though this usually works best if I then repeat my typical pre-sleep routine of reading a few pages of some novel.

Yet there are nights (night before last being an example) when I wake up wired, and the best thing (though not always what I do) is to just get up and do something for awhile before trying to reclaim sleep. Unfortunately, the way the other night worked out, the timing was too late to stay up awhile and then have time to retry for a bit more sleep. So I just stayed up all day and went to bed at my usual 11 p.m.last night.

I try an avoid midday naps as they just seem to mess my circadian rhythm up even more.

I did sleep okay last night, but we had to get up an hour earlier than usual this morning. I'm still feeling the after-effects of that missed night.

Gail said...

HI GRIZZ-

Scruffy indeed! And based on your self description it seems you were scruffy as well, as are most of us first thing in the morning regardless of the hour. I must say 5:08 is way early. I sleep long and hard only waking for the occasional tinkle. And, luckily, I pretty much do that in my sleep - never really fully awake. And no accidents to report, yet! :-)
Hope you have a wonderful Friday.
Love Gail
peace........

The Weaver of Grass said...

I love the idea of a caducity-gift - although I have no idea what it means Grizz. I shall now have to resort to a dictionary.

I often wake very early and find it easier to get up, make a coffee and read, rather than toss and turn and just get more restless.

Grizz………… said...

Gail…

I was indeed scruffy in the morning when I made the photo—and scruffy to the time when I posted the the piece and pix on the blog. At that point I decided I wasn't going back to bed, so I showered and shaved and drove up the road to a field where I frittered around making a few photos, sweating like gangbusters in the 86˚F heat.

After a couple of hours of that great fun I returned, showered again, did some things at my desk until it was apparent my brain was reverting to reptillian-mode for the remainder of the day, and afterwards just sort of existed in a state of funk until Myladylove came in—whereupon I fixed supper, we ate, watched TV until 11 p.m. (actually, Myladylove and Moon-the-Dog both snoozed the last several hours), and toddled off to bed.

So "scruffy" was not the best adjective for the better part of the day…I'd say the more accurate term was "wilted." Yessir, I was most definitely wilted!

Grizz………… said...

Weaver…

Ahhh, another occasional insomniac checking in—and one who has also figured out that tossing and turning and trying to get back to sleep in situ is seldom successful.

Caducity—the infirmity of old age. Can also include senility. Also frailty or the transitory nature of something. I believe it comes from the Latin cadere, meaning "to fall." The only reason I'm familiar with the word is because a philosophy professor friend one sent me a poem of his entitled "Caducity Time." The word has stuck in my bag ever since.

And just to be clear on the matter, I meant my aging body rather than senility in the post, as I don't think I'm senile quite yet…of course, I probably wouldn't know.