Georgeous and cool. I stay out until the sun clears the trees, letting the birdsong and the poems I’m reading intermingle in my ear: stanza after stanza of red-eyed vireo, tanager enjambment, the redstart’s end-stopped line.
American redstart
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.
Heavily overcast and cold. A redstart is calling from above the springhouse—a buoyant buzz—while a distant wood thrush makes me revisit my dreams.
Unseasonably cool at daybreak. Underneath the excited back-and-forth of a redstart and an indigo bunting, the soft calls of a gnatcatcher.
An American redstart calling from the top of the nearest walnut sounds so insistent, but about what? I’m here! This is my tree! Or maybe just: Good morning!
A gnatcatcher is searching for breakfast on the undersides of leaves. A redstart lands on the porch railing and cocks her head at me.
Cool and breezy, with the clearest air in weeks. A redstart slowly circles the house, singing his sneeze-like song.