5 Frightful Peregrinates

She dallied another two weeks. The window of the fall migration is open for only a few months. Once closed, the messages from body and environment shut off, and it is too late to go. For Frightful that would be disaster. There would not be enough food for her to survive in the frigid northern winter. IN WHICH Frightful Peregrinates When a light snow covered the Schoharie River Valley, Frightful's bird sense urged her one last time to leave or die. She took a reading on the sun's rays, listened to her internal compass, and started south. She covered only ten miles before she turned back. She was hungry. She would find Mole. When she was over the pine woods where she had been held captive, she flew faster. Mole's farm was ahead. Speeding swiftly, she overshot the

她又耽搁了两个星期。 秋季迁徙的窗口期只有短短几个月。 一旦窗口期关闭，身体和环境发出的迁徙信号就会消失，那时再出发就太晚了。 对芙莱特来说，那会是一场灭顶之灾。 寒冷的北方冬天里，没有足够的食物让她活下去。 本章芙莱特踏上迁徙路：当轻雪覆盖斯科哈里河谷，芙莱特体内的鸟类本能最后一次催促她：要么动身，要么死亡。 她对着阳光校准方向，听从体内罗盘的指引，动身往南方飞去。 她只飞了十英里就掉头往回赶了。 她饿坏了。 她要去找摩尔。 飞到囚禁过她的松树林上空时，她飞得更快了。 摩尔的农场就在前方。 她飞得太急太快，一下子飞过了

farm. It had changed. The weedy fields where the game lived had been leveled and their black soil turned over in neat rows. The dense bushes along the fences, where many birds lived, had been clipped. She circled the culvert. It, too, was changed. The bushes that covered its entrance were gone. The culvert was a round, bare hole. "Creee, creee, creee," she called. Mole did not come out. Frightful circled the farm again but did not find the yellow hound. She flew to the silo. The air was bumpy where warm currents met cold. She rode the waves to the ledge of the silo and stepped under the jutting roof. The veins of her flight feathers were split and dry. She oiled them, then snapped them back in line by running her beak down the shafts from base to tip. She let go with a flick that triggered the veins to fall neatly into place. This done, she was sleek and ready to hunt. Frightful surveyed the landscape. Even the woods were different. The leaves had fallen, and the red- tailed hawk nest was empty. The parents and young had migrated to warmer lands.

农场。 一切都变样了。 原本长满野草、住着许多小动物的田地被推平，黑土被翻整成整整齐齐的垄沟。 围栏边住过许多小鸟的茂密灌木丛也被修剪掉了。 她在涵洞上方盘旋了一圈。 涵洞也变样了。 挡住洞口的灌木丛不见了。 涵洞只剩一个光秃秃的圆洞口。 “克里依——，克里依——，克里依——”她叫着。 摩尔没有出来。 芙莱特又绕着农场飞了一圈，还是没找到那只黄色猎犬。 她飞向了筒仓。 暖气流和冷气流交汇的地方，空气颠簸不平。 她乘着气流波浪飞到筒仓的壁架，落在突出的屋顶下方。 她飞羽的羽枝干得裂开了。 她用油把羽毛润开，再用喙从羽根到羽尖捋过，把羽毛归回原位。 她轻轻抖了一下翅膀，让羽枝都整整齐齐落回了正确的位置。 整理完之后，羽毛顺滑整齐，她准备好捕猎了。 芙莱特眺望了四周的景色。 就连树林都变了样。 树叶都掉光了，红尾鹰的巢穴也空了。 红尾鹰夫妇和孩子们都迁徙到温暖的地方去了。

Weak from hunger, she left the silo and flew back over the culvert. She waited on for Mole. The wind tossed her. She matched each burst with a twist to stay in place, but Mole did not come out. Behind her, purple-red and blue-gray clouds forecast rain and wind. It was urgent that she find food. Swooping along fencerows to scare up game, she searched intently. Nothing stirred. Twilight sent her back to the silo ledge, her hunger raging. Hours later she was awakened by thunder shaking the old silo. The dark night was lit by flashes of lightning. With each flash she saw dancing trees and wild water pouring across the barnyard. It gushed out of Mole's culvert. The flashes became almost continuous, then stopped. The rain pummeled, swished, pattered, and was over. She went back to sleep. At sunrise the sky was white-yellow and pale blue, the colors of a rain-cleansed day. The woods and farm sparkled with freshness. Frightful flew over the culvert and waited on. Mole did not make an appearance.

饿得浑身发软的她离开筒仓，飞回了涵洞上空。 她继续等着摩尔。 风吹得她摇摇晃晃。 每次狂风袭来，她都扭转身体稳住位置，可摩尔还是没有出来。 她身后，紫红和蓝灰色的云预示着风雨将至。 找到食物对她来说刻不容缓。 她沿着围栏低飞，想惊出小动物，全神贯注地搜寻着。 什么动静都没有。 黄昏来临，她回到筒仓壁架，此刻饥火难耐。 几小时后，炸雷震得老筒仓摇晃，把她惊醒了。 漆黑的夜晚被一道道闪电照亮。 每一次闪光，她都看到树木狂舞，洪水漫过场院。 洪水从摩尔的涵洞里涌了出来。 闪电几乎接连不断，随后突然停了。 大雨噼里啪啦哗哗下了一阵，就停了。 她又接着睡着了。 日出时分，天空是白黄混着浅蓝的颜色，这是雨水冲刷过后的净朗晴天。 树林和农场都透着雨后清新，闪闪发亮。 芙莱特飞到涵洞上空，继续等待。 摩尔还是没有出现。

She was growing weaker. Spotting a distant harvested cornfield, she flew to a tree at its edge. She waited for something to move. Finally she caught a mouse. The storm had driven the bigger game into their shelters and burrows. In the late afternoon Frightful flew back to the culvert. Out of the sky plunged a bald eagle. He aimed right at her. She back-flipped, and he missed. The eagle beat his wings and got above her for another strike. He dove. She rolled to her back, threw up her feet, and raked him with her sharp talons. He flew up to strike again. Frightful dropped to the ground and, as the eagle dove once more, ran into Mole's culvert. He lost sight of her. He climbed, circled the culvert once, then boarded an air current that carried him off toward the Hudson River. He would spend the winter fishing there. Safe inside the culvert, Frightful panted from fright, then quickly became calm. Bird emotions are intense but short. She glanced at her surroundings. The gushing storm water of last night had slowed to a trickle. She drank. Refreshed, she walked to the mouth of the culvert, saw no eagle, and sprang onto her wings. She climbed high and fast over the tilled field.

她变得越来越虚弱。 她望见远处有一片收过的玉米地，就飞到了田边的一棵树上。 她等着有小动物出来活动。 最后她总算抓到了一只老鼠。 暴风雨把大一点的猎物都赶去洞穴里躲着不出来了。 傍晚时分，芙莱特飞回了涵洞。 一只白头海雕从天上猛冲下来。 他直冲着芙莱特扑来。 她一个后空翻躲开，秃鹰扑空了。 秃鹰拍着翅膀飞到她上方，准备再次攻击。 他猛冲下来。 她翻成肚皮朝上，抬起爪子，用锋利的爪尖抓了他一把。 他飞高，准备再次攻击。 芙莱特往地面落去，秃鹰再次俯冲时，她钻进了摩尔的涵洞。 秃鹰看不见她了。 他往高处飞，绕涵洞飞了一圈，就乘着气流往哈德逊河飞去了。 他要在那儿捕鱼过冬。 躲在涵洞里安全了，芙莱特吓得直喘气，但很快就平静下来。 鸟类的情绪来得激烈，去得也快。 她扫了一眼四周的环境。 昨晚还汹涌的暴雨水流已经放慢成细细的涓流。 她喝了点水。 喝完神清气爽，她走到涵洞口，没看到秃鹰，就展翅飞了出去。 她飞得又高又快，越过了翻耕过的田地。

When she was high enough to feel safe, she leveled off. An undulating wind rocked her southward over a brushy meadow. She came down on a fence post and watched for food. She was growing feeble as hunger weakened her. Suddenly she was in deep trouble. The sun was setting. In mere minutes the light would be too low for her to find a roost. She flew up into the last light. It illuminated the bell tower of the abandoned church at Beaver Corners. She headed for it. Winging to its weathered and rotting peak, she landed gracefully. The churchyard was thick with weeds. A farm and a woods lay nearby. She had been here. She shifted her weight nervously as the condor face of the man who had taken her from Sam flashed into her visual memory. She felt fear, but it was too late in the day to move on. She forgot him. Snow patches lay under trees where the sun did not fall. A migrating Cooper's hawk dropped into the nearby woods for the night. Like Frightful he, too, was late.

飞到足够安全的高度后，她放平翅膀开始平飞。 一阵起伏的风推着她往南飘，飞过一片长满灌木的草地。 她落在一根围栏柱上，盯着四周找食物。 饥饿不断消耗着她，她变得越来越虚弱。 突然间，她陷入了大麻烦。 太阳正在落山。 再过短短几分钟，天就会黑得让她找不到过夜的栖息处。 她向着最后一点余晖飞去。 余晖照亮了比弗角那座废弃教堂的钟楼。 她朝着钟楼飞去。 她飞到风化腐朽的钟楼顶端，优雅地落了下来。 教堂院子里长满了茂密的杂草。 不远处就是一片农场和一片树林。 她以前来过这里。 当初把她从山姆身边带走的那个男人，那张秃鹫般的脸突然闪进她的记忆，她紧张地挪了挪爪子。 她感到害怕，可天太晚了，没法再动身离开了。 很快她就把那个人忘了。 晒不到太阳的树荫下，留着一片片残雪。 一只正在迁徙的库氏鹰落进旁边的树林过夜。 和芙莱特一样，他也掉队了。

The sun set. The sky turned a twilight purple. Frightful could see only light and dark shapes. She flew down to the sill of one of the four glassless windows in the church bell tower. Lifting her wings, she walked into a square, moldy room and jumped up onto a rusted bell lying on its side. Every window was black with night. She shook her feathers and, weak from hunger, fell into a restless sleep. Last night's thunderstorm had preceded a cold front. The temperature dropped below freezing, and the migration of the birds stopped. The robins and wood thrushes and other small birds that navigated by the stars at night fluttered down into the trees. They sought the warmth of the wind- breaking woods to wait for the cold front to pass. At dawn they tittered among the trees. They called to each other and ate insects numbed by the cold. It was also too cold for hunger-weakened Frightful to fly on her way. She must eat. She took off from the tower and flew out over a weedy I meadow. A rabbit jumped up and ran toward a thicket of spiny hawthorn trees. Hunger

太阳落山了。 天空变成了暮光紫色。 福莱特福只能分辨出明暗不同的轮廓。 她飞落下来，停在教堂钟楼四扇无玻璃窗中一扇的窗台上。 她收起翅膀，走进一间发霉的方形房间，跳到一口横倒在地的生锈大钟上。 每扇窗都被夜色染得漆黑。 她抖了抖羽毛，饿得浑身发软，很快就不安稳地睡着了。 昨夜的雷暴预示着冷锋将至。 气温降到了冰点以下，鸟类的迁徙停了下来。 知更鸟、歌鸫还有其他靠星星夜间认路的小鸟，都纷纷振翅落到树林里。 它们躲在挡风的树林里取暖，等着冷锋过去。 天亮时，它们在树林里叽叽喳喳叫着。 它们互相呼应对叫，还吃被冻僵的虫子。 天气太冷，饿得虚弱的福莱特福也没法继续赶路了。 她必须找到食物。 她从钟楼起飞，飞过一片长满野草的草地。 一只兔子跳出来，朝着长满尖刺的山楂灌木丛跑去。 饥饿