It’s a beautiful autumn day. The trees have mostly turned gold. The grass in the RGNC field, which a giant noisy machine was mowing as we left, is still green.  The sky was clear and painfully pure [...]]]> So today Emma and I got an early start for a walk on Bear’s Ditch – before noon!  Yay!

It’s a beautiful autumn day. The trees have mostly turned gold. The grass in the RGNC field, which a giant noisy machine was mowing as we left, is still green.  The sky was clear and painfully pure blue. It was mostly calm, except for a breeze that was all too brief. Because it was cool at my house when we left I went with trousers instead of shorts, and rather regretted it.

I heard cranes almost as soon as I got Emma out of the car.  It took me a while of, well, craning around, but as we walked along the preserve’s southern fence to the ditch entrance I finally saw about a dozen, high up to the south of us, in small groups that joined and broke up again.

Trees line both sides of the ditch for maybe a quarter mile north from Candelaria.  Then they give way to a clear view of the RGNC fields to the west, and on the east a field between the ditch and RGB, for one or two hundred yards. As we neared the end of that I heard a crane cry and looked up to see a solo bird flying not very high overhead. He was evidently lonely, and calling up a storm in his attempts to find his flock.

I felt seriously sorry for him, up there feeling isolated and alone. Though they’re big, formidable birds they clearly rely heavily on the flock for survival, especially on migration. Just as the redoubtable Emma depends on her pack. But I assured him (not that he, or she, could hear me) that in that place and time it was unlikely he’d be alone for long. While they’re not out in the enormous numbers we’re likely to see in just a week or two there are plenty in the area now.

Still, I continued to feel bad, until I heard other voices answering the lone flyer. I looked up to see two more winging to join him. They all seemed relieved to find each other.

So I was happy. And all throughout our walk I continued off and on to hear the cranes.

Such is autumn in Albuquerque.

We also encountered two of the Very Nice Family, namely Mom and Dad, riding their mountain bikes. They were cheerful as always. They greeted me as “the Turtle Guy.”

I’m not sure I want that on my gravestone. Still, there are worse things to be known as.

And I was jolted awake by what I believed to be the cry of a flying crane or Canada goose. That was enough to levitate me out of bed, into my robe, and out the [...]]]> This morning I slept later than I originally intended to because, hey, I felt as if I needed the extra sleep.

And I was jolted awake by what I believed to be the cry of a flying crane or Canada goose. That was enough to levitate me out of bed, into my robe, and out the front door for a look.

Didn’t see anything unusual that time.  I changed into my clothes to put Emma out back.  As I did I heard a distinct trill, confirming that I wasn’t imagining what I’d heard, and that I’d heard cranes.

Both the wild geese and the cranes have a special emotional resonance for me. The sounds of their migrating formations in flight serves for me as sign and symbol of the changing of seasons.  There is that about them which I find both haunting and untamed.

When I first moved into my house (on Jupiter) over 21 years ago it was the geese that overflew the house, autumn and spring. Then to my sorrow their flight path shifted and I didn’t hear or see them anymore. From my house, that is:  they’re certainly abundant throughout my usual North Valley haunts. I just didn’t get the special thrill of being awakened by them any more.

Then a few years ago the cranes started coming over. Even better.

This time I didn’t see them either. I did see crows flying pretty high; I associate them with the coming of winter, just over a month off. But I was certain I had heard the cranes flying.

Originally I’d intended to take Emma Dog to the Vineyard, just ’cause we haven’t been there much in too long. I decided now to go to Bear’s Ditch, which is closer to the river – runs right along the east edge of the Rio Grande Nature Center. It’s a good place to see migrating cranes, which tend to follow the river.

So this afternoon, when I needed a break to think about something in my new Rogue Angel yarn (my title for it is Skinwalker; we’ll see what comes out), I took the Em out to the ditch. And sure enough, just moments after getting out of the car, I heard the cry and then the trill.  They’re both very distinctive, very penetrating. Which makes sense; they’re how the birds formate on each other in flight, I presume. They need to carry.

When I got to a spot along the south fence of the RGNC preserve where no trees obscured my view I saw them:  a vee of maybe a dozen to the north, high up and circling. I got my Simmons on them enough to confirm, yep, they were cranes. They were far enough that even in the glass I couldn’t make out anything beyond that.  Indeed, when I looked again with my unaided eye they’d vanished against the blue sky.

ut it’s always good to see them.  And hear them, of course.

As [...]]]> When Emma and I went on our walk today, on the bike path and trails down along the clear ditch by the RGNC, it was a lovely afternoon. The breeze was cold, but it’s mostly a sheltered walk. Only walking west down the path from Candelaria did the wind-tunnel effect make it really bitter.

As we crossed the wooden footbridge across the ditch from the Nature Center gate a young mother with two kids by the far landing stepped aside to let us pass. A wise idea, as it turned out.

Her older kid, a little boy of maybe five or six, came tottering forward as we reached that end, blithely ignoring his mom’s repeated commands to stop. And then he did stop, and his eyes got real wide.

“There’s a big dog!” he announced breathlessly.

Yeah, kid. No diddly. Listen to your mama next time, won’t you?

Actually I don’t think Emma would ever remotely hurt a child. She got along well with the kids at the home she lived at for a year. It was the other dogs she had a problem with. Still, I prefer to avoid putting such things to the test unnecessarily.

There’s no question that, at almost 100 pounds, burly and black with a shoebox head, Emma looks formidable. Okay, she is formidable. Most people just assume she’s a he. A lot of people admire her, some with visible trepidation.

They should hear me coo at her as my baby girl…

It seems the cranes have finally flown away. I didn’t see any in the field along Veranda, east of the RGNC. It’s sad, of course, in a way. But if they don’t go away, where’s the poignancy when they return?

That’s not altogether true. The Canada geese don’t all leave. A goodly population sticks around and produces broods of deceptively cute babies. (Deceptive, in that their parents are huge and scary.) But when I hear the wild geese flying back as the autumn air turns crisp, it always stirs me at a very deep level.