It’s been raining for hours, drumming on the leaves and dripping from the furred tongues of irises, which sway ever so slightly on their tall stalks.
Dave Bonta
Cold and mostly clear. Barely audible above the red-eyed vireos and scarlet tanager, the minor-key call of a titmouse—that wintry sound.
Breezy and cool. A pileated woodpecker hops along a log fallen into the meadow, her scarlet crest bobbing among the dames’-rocket.
In warbler season, even the wheezing of the wind seems open for interpretation: green-winged or oak-throated? The sky is achingly clear between the clouds.
A clearing wind. The wood thrush comes into the yard to sing as blue sky appears. The aspen I planted last year is already big enough to mime applause.
Listening for thunder, I hear warblers, flycatchers, vireos, a tanager. The rumble of a freight train. And finally, as I’m writing this, some thunder, off to the east.
A damp and foggy morning. From the woods’ edge, the high, whispery notes of a bay-breasted warbler, here merely to forage on his way to the far north. A catbird launches into a solo.
Rain tapering off by mid-morning. I’m still entranced by the intense green of the trees, now supplemented by white clusters of black cherry blossoms and brown clusters of red maple keys.
Warm rain. The hollow echoes with pileated woodpecker drumming and the REEP, REEP calls of great-crested flycatchers. In the yard, an American redstart is singing one of his least forgettable songs.
We’re approaching full leaf-out, and I’m still not bored of watching the simple play of sun and shadows. And how many red-eyed vireos are within earshot? I count five.
A few clouds at sunrise. Goldfinches chatter over the rap battles of ovenbirds and vireos. Bracken leaves are still opening in the yard—feathers on feathers.
A cold wind on a gorgeous morning, the newly leafed-out forest shimmering, shot through with shafts of golden light and all the birds singing.
Cold rain drumming on the porch roof. A ruby-throated hummingbird buzzes in to study his reflection in my green steel thermos.
Cool with a mix of thin clouds and murky blue. The buzzy, accelerating song of a Blackburnian warbler is interrupted by the buzzy, accelerating song of a Tennessee warbler.