Pen and Ink and Peenting

This guy rules the lawn by day....

Bare trees make pen and ink drawings against a water color peach of a sky. Sunrise or sunset, (which wonder upon wonder are farther apart these fine spring days),the colors linger long and the contrast is sharp and full of drama. It is good to pause and take it all in....

Sunrise, not sunset, but you can get the idea

Last night coming in from the barn I was halted right in my tracks by the loudest woodcock call I had ever heard. Usually they do their strutting and dancing way up by the horse pasture pond. This time the male was doing his thing right at the edge of the lawn behind the house.

It was a tad too dark to see him, although off to the west the sky was still flying its evening flags of glory. However, I think he was actually coming onto the lawn itself as he circled around through the wild roses between the horse yard and the bowling green. (Yes, we have a bowling green.)

I stood out there so long, creeping a little closer whenever he was pointing the other way that finally Becky came out to see what happened to me.

In all that time he never leapt into the sky to perform his famous sky dance though. My feet finally told me that they had had a long day and would like to go in and have me get the heck off them, so I gave up my quest for a close up ticket to the dance.

I have a theory. Every now and then he went silent for several minutes. Whenever he did I could hear, very faintly, another one twittering and whistling in skyward spirals, just at the edge of my hearing. Could this have been a young interloper intimidated by the established bird up by the pond?

Maybe. I hope he stays.