Disruption
It's nearly high tide, and the cove is glassy. The water is a flat silver mirror, smooth and still. It looks as though it's never been touched by the wind, or an oar, or by the daily churning surge of the tide. It's motionless.
The trees on the far shore - firs and pines, with a few bright-leaved hardwoods - are reflected with magical precision. They look like a doubled row, spreading both up into the air and down into the water, their trunks meeting seamlessly at the shoreline. It's perfectly, perfectly calm.
I've come out onto the deck. On the water below me, on this side of the cove, I become aware of a small disruption. Through the trees I can see a skein of fine lines on the water, like a web, radiating outward. It comes from the southeast corner - the opposite end from the cove's mouth, where it leads to the sea. There's no stream in that corner, and I wonder what could have started this disturbance. A tiny puff of air, turning the flat surface into a net of ripples? But why would it start in that wooded corner?
It doesn't stop, this mysterious rippling. It spreads out across the cove, and as I watch I think I see something on the water. My view is partly obscured, by trees and bushes, and I go down the steps and head quietly for the shore. The path through the woods is covered with a fresh fall of needles, already an autumnal reddish-buff, and they muffle my footsteps. I'm watching the water as I walk, and by now the whole cove is criss-crossed with a network of ripples. Who is doing this? How has someone shattered the smooth glassy surface so silently, so mysteriously, so completely? The upside down trees are now shattered into liquid shards, clashing loosely in the glimmering wash.
Heading down the slope I glimpse something moving toward the far side of the cove. When I reach the shore I stop, just inside the fringe of shoreline bushes, and lift my binoculars.
What's out there is a female merganser. Her head is rusty red, her body mostly grey, with a soft whitish streak along her waterline and a bright white patch near her tail.
She carries her rufous head high, her long red bill slanted slightly upward. On the crown of her head is a wild crest, and its long feathers stick out wildly, radiating like a ragged sunburst. She looks as though she's just gotten out of bed, as though she's trying out a Mohawk. She's steaming along in the water, paddling like mad. It's she, with her messy hair and ragged wake, who has unsettled the entire cove. Now all of it is rocking quietly, the fretwork of ripples sliding across the whole of the little inlet.
She's heading fast for the opposite side of the cove, getting further away every second. I step closer to the shore, my binoculars raised. I step past the big branches of a fir tree, to see better. I'm still beneath the tree, but I'm now out in the open, and fully visible. Suddenly the merganser takes off, flapping wildly, splashing and shattering the rocking water. She flies low over the surface, noisy and urgent, her wings wide and wild, the bright patch near her tail flashing. This is no slipping silently out of sight, this is an emrgency exit, panicky, cacaphonous, tumultuous.
In a few moments the cove is empty, and I step out of cover, onto the shoreline. By now the whole surface is distressed. Now it looks like ragged scumbled water anywhere - uneasy, unsettled and in flux, a zillion tiny shards of rocking reflection. And there's no-one here, no other birds, no ducks, no creatures. I stand, disappointed, at the edge of the water. It was that crazy merganser, with her wild messy hairdo, who did all this. That's who left the cove in such turmoil, and uninhabited.
But it was really me. I know that. If I hadn't been there, she wouldn't have left.
Maine, October 2008.
The trees on the far shore - firs and pines, with a few bright-leaved hardwoods - are reflected with magical precision. They look like a doubled row, spreading both up into the air and down into the water, their trunks meeting seamlessly at the shoreline. It's perfectly, perfectly calm.
I've come out onto the deck. On the water below me, on this side of the cove, I become aware of a small disruption. Through the trees I can see a skein of fine lines on the water, like a web, radiating outward. It comes from the southeast corner - the opposite end from the cove's mouth, where it leads to the sea. There's no stream in that corner, and I wonder what could have started this disturbance. A tiny puff of air, turning the flat surface into a net of ripples? But why would it start in that wooded corner?
It doesn't stop, this mysterious rippling. It spreads out across the cove, and as I watch I think I see something on the water. My view is partly obscured, by trees and bushes, and I go down the steps and head quietly for the shore. The path through the woods is covered with a fresh fall of needles, already an autumnal reddish-buff, and they muffle my footsteps. I'm watching the water as I walk, and by now the whole cove is criss-crossed with a network of ripples. Who is doing this? How has someone shattered the smooth glassy surface so silently, so mysteriously, so completely? The upside down trees are now shattered into liquid shards, clashing loosely in the glimmering wash.
Heading down the slope I glimpse something moving toward the far side of the cove. When I reach the shore I stop, just inside the fringe of shoreline bushes, and lift my binoculars.
What's out there is a female merganser. Her head is rusty red, her body mostly grey, with a soft whitish streak along her waterline and a bright white patch near her tail.
She carries her rufous head high, her long red bill slanted slightly upward. On the crown of her head is a wild crest, and its long feathers stick out wildly, radiating like a ragged sunburst. She looks as though she's just gotten out of bed, as though she's trying out a Mohawk. She's steaming along in the water, paddling like mad. It's she, with her messy hair and ragged wake, who has unsettled the entire cove. Now all of it is rocking quietly, the fretwork of ripples sliding across the whole of the little inlet.
She's heading fast for the opposite side of the cove, getting further away every second. I step closer to the shore, my binoculars raised. I step past the big branches of a fir tree, to see better. I'm still beneath the tree, but I'm now out in the open, and fully visible. Suddenly the merganser takes off, flapping wildly, splashing and shattering the rocking water. She flies low over the surface, noisy and urgent, her wings wide and wild, the bright patch near her tail flashing. This is no slipping silently out of sight, this is an emrgency exit, panicky, cacaphonous, tumultuous.
In a few moments the cove is empty, and I step out of cover, onto the shoreline. By now the whole surface is distressed. Now it looks like ragged scumbled water anywhere - uneasy, unsettled and in flux, a zillion tiny shards of rocking reflection. And there's no-one here, no other birds, no ducks, no creatures. I stand, disappointed, at the edge of the water. It was that crazy merganser, with her wild messy hairdo, who did all this. That's who left the cove in such turmoil, and uninhabited.
But it was really me. I know that. If I hadn't been there, she wouldn't have left.
Maine, October 2008.
Labels: Maine
posted by Roxana Robinsonat
10:17 AM 0 Comments
