As I sit at my desk looking out the window, I see blue skies and on the mountain foliage colors that are almost peak.

I imagine that I am zeroing in on one single pine tree on the distant summit. By means of astral projection, I am now standing in the pine needles at its foot, invisible to the deer and rabbits that are moseying around. Maybe there is a lynx or a bobcat up here in the rocks. The air is clean, cool and fresh. I look back at myself, far below in Keene Valley, sitting at my laptop.

“What are you going to write about?” I ask.

Better yet, I am a raven. I can fly back and forth from the valley up to the summit, riding the wind, catching updrafts and thermals, gliding along.

What am I going to write my column about?

Well, let’s see. Obviously, there is the presidential election, 13 months away, but I have nothing new to say about that.

Oh, please don’t, readers say. Blah blah blah. So no, I’m not going to write about politics.

Although I will point out that, while I am no mathematician, when U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz talks about “the majority of the majority of Republicans,” making it sound as if this equals more than a majority of 51%, according to my calculator the majority of the majority can be as small as 26.01%.

It’s windy outside.The air is full of leaves, and on the ground it looks as if crowds of them are running along together across the parking lot. Now they are rising up in a spiral, now falling back down. Some are all mushed up along the curb like old cornflakes, their flight potential nil.

I have read that hummingbirds have to beat their wings constantly to stay aloft. They are the only birds able to hover in place, beating their wings so fast you can’t even see them. It is not true, as some are said to believe, that hummingbirds have no feet.

I wonder whether my friend Darla’s ruby-throated hummingbird family has left the feeders in her yard to fly south. I have also read that these birds have usually taken off for Florida and Mexico by Oct. 15, which is coincidentally my daughter Molly’s birthday.

How do they know when it’s the ides of October? Do they consult tiny bird calendars?

No. Hummingbirds rely on their circannual rhythms, or biological clock, fine-tuned by the changing day length. Just like the old Tom Rush song, “Urge for Going.”

–

When the sun turns traitor cold

And all the trees are shivering in a naked row

… I get the urge for going

When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is closing down and winter is closing in.

–

Yes, it’s poetic, but it feels kind of melancholy, doesn’t it?

Then again, I guess it’s only melancholy if you’re the one left behind with the shivering naked trees on October 16, standing by your abandoned sugar water feeders, calling out “Good-bye little ruby-throated hummingbirds, wherever you are! Have a safe flight.”

Meanwhile, the birds, I imagine, are all jazzed up about their upcoming trip. Mexico! Woo hoo!

How on earth do they do it? It says here that hummingbirds fly just above treetop level. Canada geese, on the other hand, can reach altitudes of 20,000 feet.

The same online source maintains that while some people think that hummingbirds migrate riding the backs of geese — logically figuring that otherwise, being so tiny and weak, they would never be able to make it all the way to Mexico — this is not factual. Geese usually don’t even go to Mexico, for whatever reason. Also, hummingbirds leave earlier in the fall than geese do, and they have to stop off for nectar along their route. Geese have no apparent interest in nectar, and are unlikely to make special pit stops for passengers. If they had passengers. Which they don’t.

Who makes these things up? I seriously doubt that the majority of the majority of Americans believe any of this.

Have a good week.

——

(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)