Blogs by Hilary Hopkins

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September 16, 2014 / Seen at Cottage 5, Cape Cod

We have been coming here for over forty years. For some years now I have kept a little record of my favorite natural history sighting or experience of each day.  I allow myself only one short line for each entry.

See if you can see my sightings in your own mind's eye, and travel to Cape Cod as you do.

 

9/3/12    Bone-white, new-snow white, the slash of gull on blue

9/3/13    CHONG! The huge black snake, launches, kills, eats the vole

9/3/14    Chipmunk fur against my bare instep (so soft) as I sit still in meditation

 

9/4/12    The imposingly large and lovely skunk hoovers up the birds’ seed

9/4/13    Perfection of straight-edge: the horizon at sea

9/4/14    Pond in miniature atop seawall rock contains a meadow and its browsers too

 

9/5/12    Sodden, the chipmunk nevertheless forages for seed

9/5/13    Neon green puddles at the horizon, the Big Green Flash

9/5/14    The hawk sails in, looks intently, sails off: chipmunk SAFE once more

 

9/6/12    Incoming tide flows in energetic silver fingers along the miniature sand canyons

9/6/13    One hundred gulls float quietly just offshore: why?

9/6/14    In the cedar swamp, will we see small dinosaurs?

 

9/7/12    I sit at evening, pinioned by a shaft of light, O joy.

9/7/13    Did the Nauset Indians applaud the sunset?

9/7/14    My feeder birds—chickadees, titmice—holler.  What do they see?  I perceive nothing.

 

9/8/12    Look!  A black lab, swimming longshore!  No!  a seal!

9/8/13    Narrow crescent moon escorted by Venus.

9/8/14    The errant chickadee mistakes my upheld wine glass for a perch: OH!!

 

9/9/12    Rabbit sits catlike in the darkening path.

9/9/13    Small child in raccoon suit at the feeder?  No, in the flashlight it’s seen to be the real thing.

9/9/14    Waters in silver bands lie under a silver sky, no color at all.

 

9/10/12  God said, Here is a brand new animal, a SKUNK I am calling it.  See how white, how black he is.

9/10/13  Streams of transparent fishes, like shadows of themselves.

9/10/14  Campfires glow on the beach; laughter heard faintly.