The Sounds of the Morning

The quiet of fall is deceptive. The leaves fall and do barely whisper as they hit the ground or the calm surface of the water on an early incoming tide. The noises of the blue sky and the red berries are also very quiet. I sigh with pleasure as I sit on the dock, camera in hand.

Then in just a few minutes, the wild chatter of the kingfishers peirces the air as they fly from one side of the river back and forth ignoring any pursuit of food. Perhaps it is a fall territory thing? Ours are the belted kingfishers that sit so high in the trees I can barely capture them. They are hyper and the males are very territorial. The female is the fashionable one with the rust-colored belt.

Then a new noise occurs. It is the sound of the blue heron beginning his flight from the grasses. His/her cry is a gag, loud and shocking, and one wonders if someone is being strangled. So goes the quiet of the day.

The next to disturb the quiet incoming tide and crystal morning are the crows who appear to have found an owl far over the hill. They are angry and defensive and the owl sits in the distant tree and ignores them as if they were pesky flies. The crows are smart not to get too close. The sound far away takes no time to fill the quiet. Finally, mankind interrupts my peaceful morning. The "good old boys" are building or adding to a dock at the end of the river. Their sounds are small talk and laughter and infrequent commands. But their machinery overcomes all of the peace with banging and clanging.

Time to go back inside.