Natural Pause

There is that moment when nature takes a deep breath.

Cacophonous birdsong falls silent. Crickets halt the rubbing of legs. Gnats cease their spinning tornado dances. Butterflies fold their swings.

Tree leaves cease to flutter. Blades of grass no longer bend. Empty playground swings stop their ghostly pendulum. The day-long heat halts its advance. Shadows have turned from black to gray.

The silent world lies waiting...waiting... until comes that boom of thunder and sizzle of lightning announcing the opening of heavens gates. Winds churned to a howling fury send pregnant clouds racing to deliver life supporting rain. Even the stoutest of trees bend before the onslaught.

In its wake the storm leaves water drip drip dripping from a dozen and more surfaces. Sporadically at first, then with confidence, crickets resume their concerto - accompanied now by the bass of croaking frog. In the audience, birds chitter excitedly about the sumptuous breakfast to be had in the morn. And people... people revel in the shelter offered by their homes.

Relay or Triangle

I have come to believe the Delaware Bay is the avian equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle.

During the past weeks the morning sky has been heavily peppered with flocks of birds; birds in such numbers that the individual flocks could be mistaken for thunderheads at the crest of a weather front.

Originating from every compass point, the birds seem to lose their way above the waters off of central Delaware. The flocks meet, cross either under or over one another, and suddenly become an aimless swirling mass.

It's as though their internal GPS' have gone whacky and they are no longer sure whether to maintain their original direction or head off for some other destination.

....Unless of course what I'm witnessing is a series of avian relay races and each bird is busily looking for another to pass the baton to.