Crystal-clear and unseasonably cool, with dew dripping from the roof. Downy woodpeckers rattle back and forth. Tree trunks glow and fade as the sun climbs through the forest.
downy woodpecker
Downy, hairy, red-bellied and pileated: all the woodpeckers for miles around are suddenly drumming, one after another, as the scattered clouds turn orange on a crisp, nearly frosty morning.
Crystal-clear sunrise, with a bluebird warbling by the barn. A downy woodpecker at the woods’ edge has found the perfect tenor-tuned snag to rattle, in response to a distant pileated woodpecker’s thunder.
The gray supremacy of fog, filtering out the valley’s noise, leaving only the drumming of woodpeckers and the low rumble of a jet high overhead.
A heavy, gray sky that from time to time emits a shimmer of fine precipitation. Woodpeckers’ rhythms turn irregular as they move from their drumming trees to their dining trees. A bit of highway noise for the first time in a week.
A dusting of snow that will be gone by the afternoon, under a sky hoarding its white. A downy woodpecker’s machine-gun burst of taps.
A cold wind with thin clouds admitting a semblance of sunlight. The red-eyed vireo recites his refrain as doggedly as ever, not to be outdone by a downy woodpecker’s fast fills.
The sun climbs through blossoming oaks whispery with wind. Pileated woodpeckers exchange volleys of thunder. A downy woodpecker rattles like a beggar with a cup.
Gray sky with a smudge of sun, as bright as the half-out forsythia against the woods. A woodpecker and his echo. The rumble of freight.
After an orange sunrise, in the ordinary light of an overcast morning, the mechanical tapping of a downy woodpecker, the slow wingbeats of a raven.
Cloudy and damp, with long intervals between bird calls. A small woodpecker’s improbably loud rattle from the black locusts sets off a pair of Carolina wrens.
Rainy and cool. An eastern towhee is urging me—according to the time-honored birders’ mnemonic—to drink my tea, while woodpeckers large and small bang their heads against the trees.
Red spreading from the clouds to the western ridge. Robin, cardinal, phoebe: the early-spring trio, joined by a downy woodpecker on percussion with a high-pitched dead limb.
For the third morning in a row, the thermometer hovers just above freezing as drizzle falls. Woodpeckers are already at work, beating their heads against trees.