Sometimes we glimpse the pure volume of life here and it’s nearly overwhelming.
We were watching the woods flickering with fireflies this evening, and began talking about the other nearby critters, just the ones we know about, who were also going about their evenings, on the ground and on the plants and in the trees around us.
The phoebe sitting on her eggs, in her nest on one of the logs that make up our house. Who periodically cliff-dives down past the living room window, to catch a bug or have a sip of water.
The robin, on her own clutch, sitting on top of the nest box by the wood’s edge.
The hawk who flew over the yard today, carrying a snake.
The four swallowtail caterpillars in the carrot patch.
The flying squirrels, whose day begins as ours ends. Who take off from our roof, each evening at twilight.
“Scrappy”, the eastern cottontail missing a chunk from his ear, who visits the yard every evening, and who seems to have developed a taste for milkweed as well as the other forage.
The eastern grey squirrel we saw building a new drey today in one of the junipers.
The monarch babies on the milkweeds, some of which are evading Scrappy.
The cabbage white eggs on the kale.
The bat who has been using the roof’s overhang as a sometime roost. Leaving little bat poop “I was here” sign on the deck.
The hummingbird who buzzed my head today, intent on getting a drink from the red flowers of the scarlet runner beans.
The tiny bees in the yard’s clover.
The wolf spider carrying her egg sac.
The mystery russet-coloured bird who flushed from the ground up into the trees, when I rode past on my bike.
The veerys, singing their pan-flute songs as dark sets in.
The barred owl, whose call drifts through the night and in the bedroom window.
Just a few of the critters we happened to notice today. Just the ones whose paths crossed ours.
Each one of them living their lives, coming and going and breeding and eating and resting.
Multitudes.
Goodnight moon, goodnight birds and bees and bugs and beasts. Goodnight all.
