Nature’s Striptease

It was a slender tree, and yesterday I didn’t notice it. But today it stood out, because a melon-sized birds’ nest is balanced precariously at the end of one of its small branches.

Yesterday, the tree had leaves. Today it doesn’t. Take it all off, baby.

But no one is interested in seeing a naked tree. Here in Vermont crowds gather to ooh and ah over the trees’ finery, but they are gone by the time that finery hits the ground.

Suddenly, though, the season’s birds’ nests are revealed. I find out that I walked directly under a birds’ nest on my way to the mailbox all spring and summer. I see a huge nest in that big tree on the top of the hill. Does it belong to a crow? And I see that modest trees, like beeches and oaks, that hold on to their dead leaves in fall, keep the birds’ secrets longer.