creatures

A fuzzy bee (in both senses) in the vetch that grew with the Cupani and Painted Lady sweet pea seeds and which I’ve let go because honestly who can say which is lovelier? Purple bells of vetch, bi-coloured pea blossom. This bee moving from flower to flower, a yellow-faced fellow-traveller in the oregano.

Chestnut-backed chickadees making a fuss at the birdbath to let me know it was empty. They waited in the mountain ash only as long as took to fill the shallow bowl, descending in a busy flutter.

Last night, at my desk, I looked out to see a coyote at the edge of the grass, sniffing, sniffing, turning once, and when I went upstairs to look out the high window, I watched it emerge from the lane where we turn our car, watched it look, first towards the house, wondering maybe about the cat, then down the driveway where the grouse leads her young in the brush at the bottom, and off it trotted away.

Driving back from supper at the Egmont pub last week, not yet at the main road, taking our time in the falling light, we saw a bull elk not five feet from the car, standing where the road fell away into a yard, his massive antlers level with our window, close enough to see the golden velvet. Close enough to smell the body through the open windows.

Swimming this morning, the swallows swooping over me, foraging for their breakfasts, I saw a dragonfly hovering over the shallows, its wings checkered in the early light.