A special place

One of the least visited “Riverside Drives” in the east is one of my favorite places—partly because it fits gently into the landscape, and partly for the easy commerce I’ve observed between its wild creatures and friendly residents. And in part because it’s accessible from White Mills when I leave my car for servicing at Watson’s garage.

A stroll across the Lackawaxan River Bridge brings immediate entrée to realms of birdsong and shining ribbons of water. My walks have also introduced me to lifetime resident Regina Beardsley, who was a schoolgirl when the 1942 flood carried off the family barn and swirled within inches of the living room ceiling. “That was a terrible flood, the worst one,” Regina relates. “Actually, the garage here today was built from timbers my dad took from the river after the flood.”

Back in January, when I met Regina, she’d introduced me to Rosie and Rocco, a pair of guinea fowl who patrol the neighborhood and inspect everything that moves. While we were exchanging amenities, they’d hurried from a neighbor’s yard to examine the hubcaps of her car and to peck at the license plate.

“I think they enjoy seeing themselves reflected in the hubcaps,” Regina said later. “Last year one of my neighbors set out a dresser to sell, and she’s told me the birds kept looking into the mirror.”

I’ve learned, too, that guinea fowl populations on Riverside Drive suffer boom and bust cycles which probably coincide with similar cycles among their predators. From a group of 15 chicks (called “keets”) that hatched last year, only one survives. “But Rosie and Rocco have been around a couple of years” Regina says, “and four birds of Bob McHale’s give us a total of six right now.”

And remarkably, as I write on February 27, while recalling the weird “clicks” and chatter of Rosie and Rocco, the first red-winged blackbirds have settled into a mulberry tree in the garden – to herald with “squeaky hinge” call notes their pledge that snowdrops and crocuses are coming.