Catbird
Catbird
Up on the hillside, by the swimming pool there was a big summer border. It was about thirty feet long and eight feet deep, and there I put the plants I had never wanted – or dared – to put in the lower gardens by the house. Up in the summer border I put yellow plants – the buttery oenethera, and a sunny yarrow - and bright red plants – a tiny crimson potentilla – and once I even planted an apricot-colored David Austen rose, though I never went all the way to orange.
I also put huge plants up there, ones that would have overpowered the modest borders behind the house. I put in towering Joe Pye weeds, and a fancy statuesque silver plant - something argentea?? --- that soared majestically upwards for one season and then lay moping flatly in the bed until I threw it out. I planted a huge whispering clump of miscanthus in the far corner, and in the middle a colony of tall soft blurry filipendula rubrus, and a sprawling blue perovskia. Just beyond the border was a big purple buddleia.
The summer border was in full sun, and it came into bloom in July and August, after the sweeter pinks and blues of the June borders, which were down by the house. The summer border was bolder and wilder, out under the open sky, backed by our sloping meadow, facing, beyond the pool, the deep woods.
I liked working up there. It felt quite distant from civilisation; it was out of sight and out of sound of the house. I'd go up to work in the garden and listen to the birds. There were a lot of birds up there. Several families of house wrens lived nearby, one of them nesting in one of the little lanterns that hung on either side of the pool house door. That wren spent her days hunting insects in the summer border. She was incredibly conscientious. Whenever I arrived and walked over to the border, she would suddenly fly out of the tall plants at the back, the phlox or filipendula, scolding me at the top of her lungs for the interruption. She sat on the split-rail fence and complained, in a tiny, shrill, energetic, voluble stream. It didn’t really feel like abuse, it felt more like an exclamation. It felt as though we were sharing something, and as though she needed to express an opinion.
There were cardinals and robins, tree swallows, skimming over the meadow. Sometimes I saw the brilliant flash of a baltimore oriole, high in one of the hickory trees, but I never saw the nest.
The split-rail fence ran all the way around the pool. On the far side of the pool, beyond the fence, the ground sloped down through the woods, and down into a sort of boggy shrubby series of thickets. The thickets began just beyond the fence, huge overgrown wild honeysuckle bushes. Some of these had the usual cream-colored blossoms, but one of them, very large, was pink. I looked forward each spring for this to bloom, when the whole enormous rounded mass of the bush looked as though it was covered in delicate rosy-cream butterflies. It was a lovely presence, a sort of gift from the woods, as it never needed pruning or watering or feeding, and always blossomed in that spectacularly generous way.
A catbird nested in it. Or at least I think she did. I saw her slipping in and out of it, but by the time she built her nest the bush was too densely leafed-out for me to see the nest itself. In any case there were catbirds up there, around the summer border and the pool house. Sometimes they’d sit on the fence-posts and watch me; sometimes they’d sing their modest repertoire of other birds’ songs, from deep in the bushes. I knew it was them, singing.
I like catbirds, with their neat grey suits, their black trim, their elegant graphics. I like the way they move, which is quiet but confident, like someone on a diplomatic mission. And catbirds, oddly enough, like us. That catbird would come out of her honeysuckle bush when I came up to the border, and she would perch on a fencepost, watching. She was a curious, observant bird, though why she wanted to watch me pulling out weeds I don’t know. She had her own life, though, and her own thoughts.
Once I was walking through the little gate in the fence, toward the pool, and I felt something brush suddenly against the back of my head. I was thirty feet away from the house, and there was no vine or tree near. But something had made contact, something had swept deliberately against my hair, against my skull. It didn’t feel hostile, but it was startling, a tiny shock. Intimate. I turned around and saw the catbird sitting on the gatepost, her head cocked, watching me, her eye bright and black. She had her reasons for that swift, delicate encounter. I don’t know what they were.
I think about that sometimes, that soft brushing sweep against my hair. Turning to see her, surprised, and finding her vibrant eye upon me.
November 6, 2008
Up on the hillside, by the swimming pool there was a big summer border. It was about thirty feet long and eight feet deep, and there I put the plants I had never wanted – or dared – to put in the lower gardens by the house. Up in the summer border I put yellow plants – the buttery oenethera, and a sunny yarrow - and bright red plants – a tiny crimson potentilla – and once I even planted an apricot-colored David Austen rose, though I never went all the way to orange.
I also put huge plants up there, ones that would have overpowered the modest borders behind the house. I put in towering Joe Pye weeds, and a fancy statuesque silver plant - something argentea?? --- that soared majestically upwards for one season and then lay moping flatly in the bed until I threw it out. I planted a huge whispering clump of miscanthus in the far corner, and in the middle a colony of tall soft blurry filipendula rubrus, and a sprawling blue perovskia. Just beyond the border was a big purple buddleia.
The summer border was in full sun, and it came into bloom in July and August, after the sweeter pinks and blues of the June borders, which were down by the house. The summer border was bolder and wilder, out under the open sky, backed by our sloping meadow, facing, beyond the pool, the deep woods.
I liked working up there. It felt quite distant from civilisation; it was out of sight and out of sound of the house. I'd go up to work in the garden and listen to the birds. There were a lot of birds up there. Several families of house wrens lived nearby, one of them nesting in one of the little lanterns that hung on either side of the pool house door. That wren spent her days hunting insects in the summer border. She was incredibly conscientious. Whenever I arrived and walked over to the border, she would suddenly fly out of the tall plants at the back, the phlox or filipendula, scolding me at the top of her lungs for the interruption. She sat on the split-rail fence and complained, in a tiny, shrill, energetic, voluble stream. It didn’t really feel like abuse, it felt more like an exclamation. It felt as though we were sharing something, and as though she needed to express an opinion.
There were cardinals and robins, tree swallows, skimming over the meadow. Sometimes I saw the brilliant flash of a baltimore oriole, high in one of the hickory trees, but I never saw the nest.
The split-rail fence ran all the way around the pool. On the far side of the pool, beyond the fence, the ground sloped down through the woods, and down into a sort of boggy shrubby series of thickets. The thickets began just beyond the fence, huge overgrown wild honeysuckle bushes. Some of these had the usual cream-colored blossoms, but one of them, very large, was pink. I looked forward each spring for this to bloom, when the whole enormous rounded mass of the bush looked as though it was covered in delicate rosy-cream butterflies. It was a lovely presence, a sort of gift from the woods, as it never needed pruning or watering or feeding, and always blossomed in that spectacularly generous way.
A catbird nested in it. Or at least I think she did. I saw her slipping in and out of it, but by the time she built her nest the bush was too densely leafed-out for me to see the nest itself. In any case there were catbirds up there, around the summer border and the pool house. Sometimes they’d sit on the fence-posts and watch me; sometimes they’d sing their modest repertoire of other birds’ songs, from deep in the bushes. I knew it was them, singing.
I like catbirds, with their neat grey suits, their black trim, their elegant graphics. I like the way they move, which is quiet but confident, like someone on a diplomatic mission. And catbirds, oddly enough, like us. That catbird would come out of her honeysuckle bush when I came up to the border, and she would perch on a fencepost, watching. She was a curious, observant bird, though why she wanted to watch me pulling out weeds I don’t know. She had her own life, though, and her own thoughts.
Once I was walking through the little gate in the fence, toward the pool, and I felt something brush suddenly against the back of my head. I was thirty feet away from the house, and there was no vine or tree near. But something had made contact, something had swept deliberately against my hair, against my skull. It didn’t feel hostile, but it was startling, a tiny shock. Intimate. I turned around and saw the catbird sitting on the gatepost, her head cocked, watching me, her eye bright and black. She had her reasons for that swift, delicate encounter. I don’t know what they were.
I think about that sometimes, that soft brushing sweep against my hair. Turning to see her, surprised, and finding her vibrant eye upon me.
November 6, 2008
posted by Roxana Robinsonat
9:35 AM 
2 Comments:
Reminds me of when I am puttering around outside our home, called aptly "the hawksnest", and my dog starts running wildly across the property, barking at the sky. I look up, and see a red-shouldered hawk or two. I say "hello" back.
It's interesting, isn't it, simply being outdoors. You're having a conversation, just by being there, just by looking around, just by seeing who else is present.
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