winter wren

Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.

Sun almost shining through the fog. A winter wren warbles from the marsh. Up by the garage, bluebirds. It feels like March, with December light.

Sunrise into thin cirrus. A few seconds of liquid joy: the song of winter wrens, two of them, darting low over the creek.

Thrasher thrasher says the thrasher. Rising sun a bright smear in the clouds. A winter wren’s boneless ode to joy.

A winter wren warbles his spring song beside the springhouse, appropriately enough, where daffodils have just begun to open.

No frost yet, but the woods’ edge is riddled with fresh chinks of sky. The squeaky rattle of a winter wren as it pops out of the weeds.

Sun floods the treetops. A red-tailed hawk glides in and lands with a thump. In the dark lilac, a tiny winter wren bustles about.

In the cold rain, a winter wren forages in the mud beside the creek, chirping excitedly and bobbing up and down on spring-loaded legs.

In the steady rain, a winter wren sings his summer song at the woods’ edge; on a log over the creek; in the heart of the gold-budded lilac.

Half an hour till sunrise. Over the brassy din of the dooryard birds, from off in the fog, the soft, wandering warble of a winter wren.

Many small birds chasing and gleaning. An old fall webworm tent hanging from a walnut tree gets a thorough going-over from a winter wren.

Four gray squirrels interrupt their chasing to scold the feral cat—a Two Minutes’ Hate. In the corner of my eye, the zip of a winter wren.

A Carolina wren trills from the springhouse attic window, and a winter wren answers from under a pile of brush with ten seconds of song.

White sky, weak sun, a hollow knocking from the quarry. A winter wren holds forth below the old corrall, rambling, introspective.