Predawn Independence Day

I woke this morning at 4:47 to the sound of a sparrow singing outside my window, fully half an hour before proper dawn. I had set my alarm for 5:00, but this was undoubtedly a more delicious sort of awakening. Most would think it odd to hear a bird at this hour, but anyone who cares to investigate will find that the birds actually begin singing well in anticipation of the first hints of light and not as a consequence. They would also find that there is commonly enough light to read by long before dawn's rosy hues grace the eastern sky. This observation was not new to me today, and was only incidental to my rising early to go fishing at Quabbin, but I was happy to find that today was consistent with previous days and would thus hold no catastrophic upheavals of physical law.

I had set out shortly after 5:00, and I met with dawn somewhere in the Pelham Hills, peeking behind crows' wings as they reluctantly vacated the roadway. I parked at Gate 16 in Shutesbury and commenced the half mile walk downhill along the wooded dirt road. The forest was alive with birds and the dripping of pine trees. The wood thrushes seemed innumerable, and from the water's edge I could hear them singing from every direction, even far across the water. I saw two loons, a juvenile and its parent, and one of them cleared the forest with its resounding cry. The only non-avian resident I saw was an otter retreating to shore. The moose, deer, bear, bobcat, fox and coyote were all hidden away, though I am certain of their presence. Aside from the loon's resounding outburst and the minor chatter of birds and trees, the entire reservation was largely silent, lending a depth to my solitude that you can get nowhere else in Massachusetts, unique to Quabbin's accidental wilderness. Thoreau, in his Maine Woods, had a similar experience while walking through a wild place that seemed "ready to echo the growl of a bear, the howl of a wolf, or the scream of a panther." He observed that "when you get fairly into the middle of one of these grim forests, you are surprised to find that the larger inhabitants are not at home commonly, but have left only a puny red squirrel to bark at you. Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveller that does the howling." I have gradually learned to subdue the imaginary howling that my nervous mind presupposes, such that I am not frightened by every creaking branch or rustling bird. I was thus put at ease today and able to enjoy the occasional genuine howl of a solitary loon emphatically declaring his wild freedom in the dawning light of Independence Day...even though I didn't catch any fish.