an eventful passage

The passing of Jose didn't seem to produce anything exotic around here but it did produce a couple of unusual encounters. One was yesterday morning when I was coming out of the marsh. The strong northwest winds seemed to have driven most of the birds away -- even in the rather protected area near the head of the marsh -- so I was surprised to see a whole cadre of mostly small birds hovering anxiously and rather noisily around a low dense bush. Almost every local species was represented including a Ruby-throated Hummingbird and, even more surprisingly, at least four or five American Redstarts (all in the 'yellowstart plumage). I tried to peer into the middle of the bush but I couldn't see anything nor did the bird's actions and my experience with owls suggest that a Screech Owl was hiding in a bush just a few inches off the ground. Was there a predatory cat sneaking around? If so, it was a completely stationary cat as the birds did not change the direction of their anxiety even as I approached. Suddenly I saw what it was. Wrapped round some bare branches sticking out from the bush were two Garter/Ribbon Snakes. Had the snakes been routed from their den by the extremely high tides? They were a few feet above the ground and right out in the open but curled up in the dead branches where their yellow and black stripes afforded them -- at least to me if not to the birds -- some measure of camouflage. Oddly enough, after about 15' or 20' the chiviers all suddenly departed leaving just the chivied and myself to contemplate the situation. The snakes, ever so slowly then started to move which I took as my signal for departure. There were a few warblers and flycatchers that stayed around through the storm. In addition to Common Yellowthroat, Black-an White Warbler and the surprising number of Redstarts, Lorna saw a warbler with a bright yellow breast and no wing bars hanging out with a feeding flock of Titmice and Chickadees; I looked hard but couldn't find it. I did see both Eastern Phoebe and Eastern Wood-pewee weathering the weather. This morning, the winds were still blowing fitfully. As is my usual practice I took my dog out for a walk shortly after 6 am. As we all know, at this time of the year, it's still quite dark at that hour but Rimsky (the dog) doesn't care as he is mostly interested in what he can smell. Suddenly he started to bolt and I had to hold on to his leash for dear life. Rimsky is 14 years old and rarely exhibits such eager chase behavior these days, even for his favorite 'chaseables' -- deer, Wild Turkey, etc. But these are all daytime creatures. His new item of interest was a nocturnal forager: a Virginia Opossum! In the old days, we let our dogs run free and one of Rimsky's predecessors got into a horrible nocturnal tussle with one of these beasts. I grabbed a flashlight and made my way into the woods to find the dog standing triumphantly over its dead prey. I collared the dog and brought him back into the house but then I had to make several return trips into the woods to show everyone in the family the bleeding carcass of our resident marsupial. Except the last time I went out -- with daughter Eva as I recall -- there was no possum. I shone the flashlight into the understory of the woods and there was the 'bleeding' possum calmly trotting away. I had completely forgotten that these animals can 'play possum' with about as realistic a performance as you can imagine. In any case, Rimsky didn't get the chance to try the experiment again. Eric Salzman