The falcon hangs in space for second after second, motionless, as if suspended on a thread, its wings, body, and spirit in perfect equilibrium with the streaming torrents of the air. Give your heart to the hawks, urged Robinson Jeffers. Okay, I thought, I’ll do that. For this one splendid moment. Until the falcon sheers on the wind and vanishes in storm and light” (Abbey 54-55). 

I really enjoy the imagery of this scene as it relates to my own experiences with birds in nature. The calmness and simplicity of a darting bird across the landscape is something that I hope to see when I go out into nature. I do not believe I have ever seen a peregrine falcon, but I have had similar experiences with water birds like cranes and pelicans where they swoop down snatch their intended prey and fly off never to been seen again by my eyes.

“The birds were excited, stammering new songs all day long. Titmice, which had hidden in the leafy shade of mountains all summer, perched on the gutter; chickadees staged a conventicle in the locusts, and a sparrow, acting very strange, hovered like a hummingbird inches above a roadside goldenrod” (Dillard 247-248). 

This passage in particular makes me proud of myself in terms of labeling things in nature. Every bird and plant named in this, I would be able to identify and point out if need be. This wealth of labeling expertise also in terms of reading I thinks adds some depth and significance to the overall understanding of awe Dillard is trying to get across when bird watching.

“One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the Spring come in” (Thoreau 333).

I understand the feeling Thoreau is trying to get across when he says this, but I can not agree with him about the leisure standpoint. The changing from winter to spring to me is not leisure, it more closely related to restlessness and anticipation because you want it to come so badly.

Thus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature.The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf. What Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last? This phenomenon is more exhilarating to me than the luxuriance and fertility of vineyards (Thoreau 336). 

I do not know what I really get out of this passage, yet the imagery and metaphor in it is something I can use to better understand my own feelings about the changing of seasons.