The Magic of Today

I didn’t really want to get up. Windy and clear conditions make for the least interesting sunrise and Saturday’s are busier than I’d like at the lake when it’s warm. I thought there wouldn’t be much to see today. I rose anyway. Sometimes I’m glad my mind doesn’t always seem to be in charge of my body.

Still not really wanting to go out but realizing I was awake and not going back to sleep, I decided to walk down to the pond anyway. A short walk for exercise I reasoned but I took the camera just in case. After all these years I should know that anything is possible but some mornings I don’t feel it. As I approached the pond I saw a big, dark bird in the trees. I felt my heart jump in a good way, that way or recognizing something wonderful is about to happen. It was so out of place I had to wait until the gears in my mind finally circled into realization - an osprey!

I discovered the neighborhood pond last year during the first few months of pandemic “lock down” and was so happy to find out how wonderfully alive it is. The beavers spent the winter blocking my best sunrise spot with two fallen trees and somehow this had dampened my expectations for this year. Yet here was a big, beautiful bird I had never seen at the pond before. The red-winged black birds were much less excited about the osprey than I was and so it wasn’t long before the osprey had enough of their pestering and was airborne. She generously circled a few times before flying away. The doorway to magic was open.

I sat down on the water’s edge in the dry stubs of last years grass and watched the northern shovelers and blue-winged teal who were making a little stop on their northern migration. These funny little ducks were busy eating but taking little breaks to do their head-bobbing dance that seems to be a pre-cursor to mating. As the sun rose on my back, a robin started whistling her happy tune a couple feet above me in the tree. It was cool enough I wasn’t surrounded by bugs and warm enough my hands weren’t at all cold.

I sat and listened to the sounds, letting the recollection come into my brain one by one. The soft, sweet, lilting song of the song sparrow that briefly popped up from the reeds and then disappeared again. The three-noted call of the red-winged blackbird culminating in their distinctive, throaty vibrato. The piercing cackle of the flickers echoing over the lake as they chased each other from one tree to the next. A mysterious and eerie sound I couldn’t place at first until I finally saw the blue jay who was singing it. Did I know blue jays would make that sound?

A muskrat suddenly appeared, swimming directly towards me and I held my breath and camera as still as possible as the excitement rose in my body. He got close enough my camera went out of focus, then decided to turn and go up the bank to my right. Later I saw him emerge back into the water from my left and wondered just what kind of tunnels went beneath the ground I was sitting on.

I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t even want to move to be honest. I wanted to sit there in this moment of paradise, breathing in the sunshine and peace. All too soon the cars started humming, people and dogs started walking by on the sidewalks and I knew it was time to go. It’s funny how Today can be full of magic even when we least expect it.