yellow-rumped warbler

Light rain accompanying a front. As it tapers off, the yard fills with small birds—yellow-rumped and other warblers combing the leaves for breakfast.

I am mentally marking walnut saplings for removal when they fill with migrants: yellow-rumped and palm warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet.

Every morning more shards of ridge-top sky are visible through the trees. In the black birch’s yellow crown, yellow-rumped warblers.