When the mid-morning rain eases up, the phoebe comes out to hawk for gnats, and I hear the first wood thrush singing—those pure, sad notes.
Tag Archives: wood thrush
Tuesday May 07, 2013
A cerulean warbler sings at the woods’ edge, the same urgent, rising notes that woke me an hour earlier. But still no wood thrush.
Monday July 30, 2012
A wood thrush fledgling lands on the lower bar of the fretwork spandrel, breast feathers disheveled, eyerings imparting a look of surprise.
Wednesday May 02, 2012
Dawn. As light grows, more and more shades of green and gold emerge from the forest shadows. Bell-like notes of the first wood thrush.
Tuesday October 18, 2011
Dawn: the soft wickering of a wood thrush. Three hours later: chipmunks’ incessant hammers. A tiny blue wasp explores the sunlit railing.
Monday October 03, 2011
Dawn. A migrant wood thrush flits from branch to branch along the edge of the woods. In the yard, a grown fawn nuzzles its mother’s neck.
Friday July 15, 2011
Whither the thrush whose ethereal notes woke me at dawn? A male towhee flies up to a sunlit branch and takes a shit, singing.
Saturday July 09, 2011
Wood thrush and cardinal song. A male hummingbird chases a silver-spotted skipper off the beebalm, then retreats to a dead branch to preen.
Sunday June 12, 2011
Wood thrush, cerulean warbler, red-eyed vireo, Baltimore oriole—song by song I tick them off as yellow petals fall from the tulip tree.
Friday May 20, 2011
Each glaucous leaf of the bleeding-heart has rolled its rain into one fat bead. I’m wondering: where have all the wood thrushes gone?
Monday September 13, 2010
Ground fog forms at dawn in the bottom corner of the meadow and quickly dissipates. The screech owl’s quaver gives way to soft thrush calls.
Monday July 05, 2010
The ornamental cherry’s last leaves are dying. A silent wood thrush watches a tanager so scarlet it throbs in the light-drenched crown.
Friday June 18, 2010
A catbird mimics the wood thrush, call-and-response style, getting the phrasing right but little else. Venus fades into the dawn sky.
Wednesday June 16, 2010
Just inside the woods, the soft clucks of a hen turkey trailed by a single chick. A thrush song sounds like a threnody—slow, sad notes.
Sunday June 13, 2010
The air is close, but it gets even closer: first a shower, then a torrent. The wood thrush falls silent. The doe flicks water from her ears.
Tuesday June 01, 2010
The tulip tree’s enormous flowers are opening, yellow and orange petals dripping nectar, accompanied by the wood thrush’s choir of one.