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.
Plummer’s Hollow
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.
From sun to gloom to sun again in less than an hour. The vireos, ovenbirds, goldfinches and gnatcatchers chatter on regardless, interrupted only by a great crested flycatcher’s stentorian call.
Foggy at sunrise. A turkey gobbles non-stop from up in the field, and the woods ring with vireos and ovenbirds. At the edge of the porch, a gray squirrel nuzzles her almost-grown offspring.
Some prolonged glimpses of the sun. Gnats circle my head despite the gnatcatcher calling non-stop from the edge of the yard.
A rainy morning with little actual rain. The red squirrel scolds and chatters from the springhouse. A hint of scent wafts around the house from the old purple lilac.
Rain. The endlessness of red-eyed vireo song. A drumming pileated woodpecker switches to a higher octave.
Overcast and damp, with the intense green of new leaves everywhere. Two doves moan in different keys. A squirrel carrying a walnut walks down the road out of sight.
A wood thrush is singing at the edge of the woods at sunrise—that old sweet song. Behind him, the tall hawthorn has just come into bloom.
Clear and cool at sunrise. A feral cat slinks through the coverts at the woods’ edge, pursued by a small, mostly silent entourage of chickadees and titmice.