Spring on the Greenbelt Trail means clusters of leaves starting to sprout from tree limbs. A tree's deep swirls with green leaves growing from them tell a silent tale of the ages. Listen for the sounds of unseen birds: there is a trilling sound, "cheet it, cheet it, cheet it" in one direction, and from another direction a soft tired gurgle. Look at the too small, black-capped head and pinched face of a catbird; notice the thin, black rectangular mask around the eyes of a male cardinal; look into the coal black eye of a robin that is looking apprehensively back at you coming unexpectedly around a bend.

This is the mating season. A truncated, decayed tree has two freshly bored holes made by a woodpecker that probably has a nest inside. A male red-bellied woodpecker abruptly flies out of the trailside and makes a fast curved turn onto a tree limb near its nest site. It snakes up a tree trunk, then flies to an adjacent tree where it does the same. The bird stops and holds its red-capped head back scanning the surface for insects, its bill slightly open like a pair of tweezers ready to pluck. I've seen this lithe and athletic woodpecker here before and often, along the trail, hear the red-belly's telltale call, which sounds like a squeaking rubber doll.

May is a migration month where birds make their way north to their summer feeding grounds. Among them are lightning fast warblers about five inches in length flitting between trees and into clusters of leaves before you can get a decent look at them. Some warblers can be difficult to identify. There are two lemon bright, yellow warblers going from tree to tree. Their sides appear to be gray/silver. Are they yellow warblers or close cousins? In the sunlight they speed in a circle around a tree like two miniature merry-go-round horses. They fly to another tree, one in pursuit of the other. Are they in the throes of mating or are they doing this for pure joy?

Today's bird du jour is definitely the catbird. You've heard of the catbird's seat? I'm walking it today, having sighted at least 15 gray catbirds. Catbirds, named for their mewing sound, have suede gray bodies of various shades, a sooty white breast and a rust colored rump. A few minutes ago I saw a catbird on a tree limb, its slightly curved bill stayed open without a sound coming from it, as the bird looked in the direction of a soft sound coming from a nearby tree. As the bird quickly flew across the trail there was another catbird on a tree limb even closer to me. I hadn't noticed it because I was looking in the opposite direction. Another catbird on the ground, with a grub in its bill, swallowed the morsel, then pulled aside a piece of bark almost as long as itself in search of more.

I whack a long limb against a tree trunk to shorten it into a walking stick. The sound scares off two other catbirds in a bush which I had no idea were there. How many others have heard or saw me coming and disappeared into the scrub? I have to believe that many of these birds are migrants. There just are nowhere near these numbers at other times of the year.

I see the fast approaching shadow on the sunlit ground. A big bullet with wings outstretched passes low over my head. So silent it doesn't buzz the air; I feel the thrill of the bird overhead before I see it. The pale body dips and then rises into a treetop hidden by green leaves. There's only one thing that big in these woods and that is a red-tailed hawk. Where are you going guy? How about stopping to say hello to a fellow traveler. I saw one fleetingly, the other day on a hill as it dipped and rose like a brown and white roller coaster car disappearing into the light green tree leaves of spring. That raptor seemed to have another following it. What stuck me at that moment was how silent, completely silent, the woods were.

A few days later at first the grayish form at the foot of the big hill that I call Cemetery Ridge looked like a hawk but a second glance suggested a squirrel. Another look told me it was a red-tail. I stopped dead still leaning on my walking sticks. Don't scare it, it knows you're here. The raptor spreads its wings and showing the rust colored tail alights onto a pile of scrub wood. It turns and looks around placidly. Then the bird spreads its wings and without any urgency lifts leisurely into the space between the trees for a long few moments. Finding a high branch, the raptor disappears into the greenery. The few seconds that it was in the air were so compelling that as I write these words I still can see the bird ascending.

I climb the steep ridge, the wind has increased and the sky turned gray. Off in the distance the silence is broken by several birds calling unmercifully loud and long. It's an urgent warning call. My hawk must be hunting. I wish I could see what is going on. I don't think that one is any migrant, but a local who nests by the nearby Methodist Church and knows these woods as well as I do.

If the hawk appeals to the explorer in me, the rufous-sided towhee appeals to the artist inside. The latter is an eight and a half-inch bird that one afternoon left me smitten. It is black with rust colored sides, a white breast and a longish tail. I first saw it perched on a tree limb. The thin white edges on either side of the tail and the white spots at the ends of the bird's outside tail feathers, made me think that it was a tropical bird somehow blown way off course. The bird moves to the broken joint of the gray tree. This is by far the most dazzling towhee I've ever seen. Taking no chance of scaring it off, I stand still as a statue.

Some three and a half minutes later, I'm not sorry the bird is gone. It has proved so achingly beautiful, that a longer view would have been difficult. Ah rufous, I'm never going to see you in the same way again! When will I see you again? Maybe it was the tufted feathers on your crown and the way in which the sunlight fell on your fanned tail making the whites seem translucent. Perhaps it was the way in which those tail whites just melted into smaller whites and occasional rust spots on the side of your body. Or perchance it was the way you walked on the stage setting of a broken gray tree. At heart I'm a romantic; the towee has exposed that part of me. I pen some notes, a poor sketch and start to walk. It's only the middle of May and the spring migration isn't over till the end of the month. There's so much more to see.