Now drop the holt, and securely nail The horse-shoe over the door; 'T is a wise precaution, and if it should fail It never failed before. Folks downriver will talk your ear off about luck and tides and moon-phases, but up here we know better. The shad don’t come home on charts or calendars. They come because the Shad Spirit calls them — that speckled bird with gold under his wings and the flash of red on his neck, the one you see tapping on the cedars in the frosty spring mornings. I’ve watched him more years than I can rightly number. He comes riding in when the south wind shakes the foam at the Sound’s mouth, flying low over the water like an arrow loosed from an old hunter’s bow, straight and sure. And when the river is bright with dawn, you’ll see him skimming just above it — the whole surface turning silver under his shadow, as if the fish themselves were rising to follow. He’ll perch on driftwood or a rib of wreck and tap, steady as a shepherd calling his flock out of rough seas. But it’s his voice that turns the shad northward. Sometimes it’s a steady bark, sometimes a sharp and rolling laugh that tumbles along the wind. The fish know it; they’ve heard it since the first rivers ran. And they gather when he calls, lifted by a summons older than our stories. “How does he know the way he flew before?” you ask. Ah now, that’s an old marvel. But I’ve always said the bones of last year’s shad gleam pale on the shore, bright enough to guide him upriver. Even when the wind lies still, the water will turn white with the flock he’s driving before him, their backs flashing like the foam of a breaking wave. When the pork barrel’s low and the cider cask gone quiet, I’ve heard him tapping on my boat’s chine — telling me the lean days won’t last. So mind my words: when you see that flicker flying like a red blaze over the river, and hear his call dancing down the current, get your nets ready. For the Shad Spirit never passes without bringing a gift up the silver tide.
A Northern Flicker foraging for worms below a thin blanket of snowy leaves. #birds 🪶 #birding #BirdPhotography #NaturePhotography #Woodpeckers #ShadSpirit #FlyDay #EastCoastKin