Notes From Middletown (Part Four)
I'm getting ready to leave Middletown for Brooklyn. It's been three weeks of really lovely, sunny weather; the kind I probably would have been unable to take full advantage of back home. The nearly empty sidewalks; my private balcony; the empty liberal arts college up the hill - have combined to give me the kind of access to the outdoors that would have been unavailable this year.
The bird population here is amazing and presents a nearly constant source of surprise and wonder. Clearly the most common species is the turkey buzzard. They are nearly as ubiquitous in the skies over Middletownas they are in rural Virginia and North Carolina. One explanation I have observed frommy balcony is that they have grown adept at attacking unguarded garbage bags at the rear of restaurants. Middletown is full of restaurants.
The buzzards are rather ugly when viewed up close but they are related to the condor family and their wing span is tremendous when viewed from below.
Easily confused with the buzzards, there are a fair number of other raptors, including golden eagles and red tail hawks. The eagles are a new breed for me. They are only distinguishable to me by their call which is harsher than the red tail. A pair were circling around each other while Nancy and I watched on the roof deck the other day and we could both hear them clearly calling out to each other. It was quite different from the red tail's high pitched lament that I heard the evening that Mom died four years ago.
One of those eagles passed my balcony a day or two later and was close enough for me to see its piercing, predatory eyes. I followed its flight path and was sure that it had landed on the roof of my building. I decided to check it out. Sure enough, it had perched on one of the corners of the building, furthest from the deck's doorway. It was totally fine with my watching it from a distance as it turned its neck 180 degrees around to observe me.
The news has not been good out of Tobacco Country and it is anyone's guess as to who would present the greater danger of infecting whom with the coronavirus: a visitor from New York or a host from North Carolina? It's that kind of calculus that is dividing my family right now. So, between Nancy, the retired widow who has befriended me here in Connecticut and a few select shopkeepers, the birds are my single biggest connection with living vertabrae.
I am rushing back now in order to change the water in my gigantic porcelain fish bowl, hoping its sole occupant, a low-energy catfish, hasn't urinated enough to poison himself.
The bird population here is amazing and presents a nearly constant source of surprise and wonder. Clearly the most common species is the turkey buzzard. They are nearly as ubiquitous in the skies over Middletownas they are in rural Virginia and North Carolina. One explanation I have observed frommy balcony is that they have grown adept at attacking unguarded garbage bags at the rear of restaurants. Middletown is full of restaurants.
The buzzards are rather ugly when viewed up close but they are related to the condor family and their wing span is tremendous when viewed from below.
Easily confused with the buzzards, there are a fair number of other raptors, including golden eagles and red tail hawks. The eagles are a new breed for me. They are only distinguishable to me by their call which is harsher than the red tail. A pair were circling around each other while Nancy and I watched on the roof deck the other day and we could both hear them clearly calling out to each other. It was quite different from the red tail's high pitched lament that I heard the evening that Mom died four years ago.
One of those eagles passed my balcony a day or two later and was close enough for me to see its piercing, predatory eyes. I followed its flight path and was sure that it had landed on the roof of my building. I decided to check it out. Sure enough, it had perched on one of the corners of the building, furthest from the deck's doorway. It was totally fine with my watching it from a distance as it turned its neck 180 degrees around to observe me.
The news has not been good out of Tobacco Country and it is anyone's guess as to who would present the greater danger of infecting whom with the coronavirus: a visitor from New York or a host from North Carolina? It's that kind of calculus that is dividing my family right now. So, between Nancy, the retired widow who has befriended me here in Connecticut and a few select shopkeepers, the birds are my single biggest connection with living vertabrae.
I am rushing back now in order to change the water in my gigantic porcelain fish bowl, hoping its sole occupant, a low-energy catfish, hasn't urinated enough to poison himself.