This morning is different. Somehow my senses seem sharper, the world around me is magnified, and I am able to take in everything at once. Yes, the snow has stopped. Yes, it is warmer; the mercury in the thermometer has risen to 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Fog filters through the spruce forest, shrouding the snow-covered earth in an ethereal blanket. The gentle swirling mist is almost mesmerizing as the warmer air interacts with the frozen ground creating an atmosphere unique to this moment.
My mind grapples with what exactly is going on. What is so different? Then it hits me like a sledgehammer. The silence… There is no sound whatsoever. No birds. No squirrels. No planes. No freighters. No people. Not even a hint of urban echo. The quiet freezes me in place. One slight move, and it is gone, will be broken forever, and I don’t want that. Down to the very last fiber of my being, all I want is this silence to last as long as possible.
I have not seen a raptor in days. In fact, bird activity of any kind has practically been non-existent. The weather has been inhospitable, to say the least. Snow and ice storms and high winds with gale-force gusts had us all seeking shelter. Today is different. I reach out with my senses, and now, I hear a crow, a little later, a Black-capped Chickadee, a raven, and then later a Blue Jay. Out of the fog, I can hear the Herring Gulls at the harbor. I can even hear snow melt dripping off the trees. It is a revelation when I realize that the reason behind all this peace is that there is no wind!
If there is one thing you can count on at Whitefish Point, it is wind. Now, without it, the surrounding landscape seems to have stopped in time. I think, like me, it wants this moment to last. This brief respite is a blessing. Wind numbs the senses. It howls and drowns out the competition of other sounds. The wind brings the cold; it blows through your layers of warm clothing, finds the cracks in whatever shelter you take, and creeps through, freezing you to your core. The wind shapes this peninsula, the snowdrifts, the dunes, the deadfall, and it fuels the ever-growing eastward march of its very tip.
So I greedily take this moment while it lasts because I know it will all change as the clock ticks towards the afternoon. The fog will recede, the wind will pick up, and cars will arrive. At this point, I can only hope to see a raptor. The start of this season has been the slowest I have experienced. So much depends on the weather, and the weather has not been friendly to my feathered friends. In the silence, I imagine thousands of raptors both south of the Mackinac Straits and rounding the western shore of Lake Michigan, all waiting for the winds to change, to fly north and be counted.
~ Rich Couse
2022 Spring Raptor Counter
Featured photo: The Whitefish Point Light Station in the fog. Photo by Rich Couse
