This last week has looked and felt like autumn slipped summer a mickey, pushed it off the barstool and settled into its place. Part of that's normal -- the slant of the sun has changed, the days are growing shorter. But it's had the feel of the real thing. Cool days, cold nights. Dramatic fall-style skies. Beautiful, all of it, but not your standard early to mid-August fare, at least not day after day after day of it like this.
The unbelievable soundtrack of songbird partying that I heard outside the house here during June and July began quieting down at the turn of the month, then pretty much disappeared altogether seven days ago, when summer took a powder. All I hear now are autumn/winter bird sounds -- sparrows, chickadees, crows, bluejays, like that. And the annual migration cameos have started up. Two days ago, I'm sitting outside with a book, soaking up late-afternoon sunshine. Everything quiet. All of a sudden two pair of cedar waxwings appeared about ten feet away, at the edge of a long yarrow-covered slope. Birds that only pause here as a pit-stop on the haul south -- in past years, always in September. (Extremely cool-looking critters, BTW -- sleek and streamlined, looking like the superheroes of the feathered crowd.)
And on top of all that, three days ago I had my first autumn color sighting, in Montpelier. August 12th.
I don't know what it all means. (Could be it don't mean a thing.) But there it all is. The only summer holdouts have been the hummingbirds that frequent the household feeder, who put on a show for me a few hours ago, shooting around the yard. A season's-end spectacular, maybe. Their usual day of departure is August 15th -- today.
And me, I'm joining the exodus, kind of, heading up to Montreal tomorrow. Just a brief swing north -- enough time to hang about the city a little, get together with a friend for the evening. Back on Thursday.
It'll be interesting to see what the border crossing is like this time around. Probably the usual Q&A, the agent checking out my passport while giving me the x-ray eyeball, me turning on the understated charm until they weary of the whole routine and wave me through.