Arboretum Diary

"I was swelling with pride at having been taken for a tree by a kingfisher." – Jules Renard "Kingfisher"












March 9

Having finally found the remnants of the Lost City again at the far east portion of the Arboretum, it seemed only fitting that it would be the smallest of its species, the Downy Woodpecker, to be the culprit splitting open the silence of the forest in spring.  There had been the flickering nuthatch or two which had stirred in interest to our visit along the more slender trails of the Lost City.  They bob at the thin end of the basswood trees which are still so leafless as to look paltry and sickly even.  Without the glamor of foliage it becomes very obvious what the crowding of the tree species does to the reach of the dominant canopy oaks, the pine trees which flourish only at their highest peak, the basswood bending so far as to near collapse in search for limited sunshine.  Yet the nuthatch sees this as a jungle gym, small little temporary rulers of the airwaves.  That is until we moved outside of the jungle gym of the Arboretum proper and out onto the heavily forested neighboring streets that line Arboretum Drive near the vast Redwing Marsh.  Three old oaks stood leafless in the side yard of ancient home.  It itself  had been silent for a moment, but then, in among the enormous tubes of limbs, the unmistakable drumming of some such species of woodpecker in its patterned attack.  We walked a bit past the scene and tried to find the knocking head and there it was built inside an open air ring, five or six reverberating knocks, then silence again, as if in pondering of the work of the indestructible beak.  In deep cold spring, the houses themselves lifeless except for the competition of the nail gun by carpenters in the distance fastening tar sheets onto a garage roof.  Off in the distance, barely awakening in the cold air, the song-a-lee of the red winged blackbird striking its own fierce notes announcing its cattail territory.