natural wonders

Today, I was sitting on our porch,wrapped in a blanket ,when a small hawk crashed into the screen and plopped to the ground,stunned.He lay there for a few seconds twitching slightly,his beautiful striped grey and white tail feathers moving.It was dreadful to see and then,he recovered and took off in what I can only say was a flash.Gone.

This has been a Fall of wonder,of surprising natural happenings in our part of the world.A monarch butterfly crawled out of a tiny hole in her cocoon and emerged in all her orange,black and white glory.She had begun as a caterpillar in New York,hung upside down as a chrysalis on a plant of mine and then emerged on a leaf on that plant on my porch in Georgia.I whisper a safe journey for her trip to Mexico.

We have had three turkeys visit the spot under our bird feeder,and at least ten of them stirred such a noise in the woods one day that I was chased into the house in fear.I wonder if the coyote whose scat I see had hunted them down ?

The deer come for the corn and the hummers are still here,three of them.One day soon that whirring and clicking sound of approach will stop and leave a small sadness.

When we moved here twenty years ago we had just a slight understanding that the Flint River was behind us.None of these woodland visitors would be here without this slow moving ,quiet, naturally flowing river;so mightly named by the Indians.Thronateeska.The mighty Flint.