Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!

Seems like as soon as the trees are in full leaf, all the birds disappear. This Spring, the change felt overnight. One day I was watching Magnolia warblers, American Redstarts, and Bay Breasted warblers, ticking them off my list in swift succession along with many others. The next day, nothing. Zip. Nada.

With the Spring migration over, I use the Summer to tick off all the birds I missed while I was hunting for warblers and other migrants. And I’ve missed quite a few. Almost all the aquatics, for example. And even some of the regulars like the goldfinch.

How could I have missed them? Well, I’m an avid birder, not a fanatic, meaning, I take what comes. Meaning, I do other things, too.

Now, when I go out birding, I look for all my regular pals, the ones we know and a few we rarely see but we know are around like the kingfisher, the brown thrasher, and the green heron.

But those damn leaves. They make everything so much harder.

With birding becoming an ever futile experience, naturally, one begins to notice other delights, like a million things I never noticed before and know nothing about. Like fungus. Like toads and frogs. Like animal tracks. Like wildflowers. (To say nothing about the amount of trash people are leaving behind in the forest preserve–but that’s another post altogether. )

Needless to say, I’m spending a lot of time wondering, “what’s that?” My coffee table is covered in guide books to flowers, trees, insects, and mushrooms. Seems like every time I hit the trail, I find more questions and fewer answers.

And it’s wonderful! Sheer joy–because there’s always so much more. And it’s not just the woods. I’m seeing more in town, on the road, out any random window. Seems like once I opened my eyes to one thing I never saw before, my eyes were opened to an unending series of whats? and whys? and wows!

In other words, once I couldn’t see what I wanted to see, I saw what’s been there all along.

This makes me feel a bit displaced. The world is not as I thought and what’s more–I know very little about it. Add in the pandemic and the current political climate and life can feel unsettled, strange, even obscure. After all, there’s no guidebook for the pandemic and the traditional playbooks for understanding race and culture no longer apply.

I know how passive this sounds, especially when the current moment feels scary and urgent. But seeing is the first step towards understanding. At least, that’s what the fungi and the frogs are teaching me: Look. See me. Know.