A black-and-white warbler probes the cracks between the floorboards for soft bits of grit and hair to line its nest, high in a walnut tree.*
*Or not. See here.
black-and-white warbler
April 30, 2021
Trees bend and sway in the wind: how seldom they collide, how little noise they make! A black-and-white warbler wheezes like a pump handle.
May 12, 2019
A flock of warblers at the woods’ edge in the pouring rain: flashes of redstart, cerulean, black-and-white. A singing black-throated green.
May 3, 2018
Three days of heat have fuzzed the treetops in gray-green gauze. A warbler wheezes. The breeze makes an empty beer bottle moan.
May 1, 2014
Sunny and humid, as dark clouds move in from the west. The quiet wheeze of a black-and-white warbler. The first ovenbird’s strident chant.
July 11, 2012
A red-spotted purple butterfly is in my seat, slow-dancing with its attenuated shadow. The ageless wheezing of a black-and-white warbler.
April 22, 2012
Church bells from town swell and fade as the wind eddies—some old hymn on the carillon. A black-and-white warbler’s breathy two-note call.
June 23, 2010
No trains are running. The black-and-white warbler’s quiet wheeze competes only with the distant vuvuzelas of rubber on road.
May 9, 2010
Breezy and just 3 degrees above freezing. A warbler marbled like a sideways zebra wheezes from the lilac: black-and-white, easiest of i.d.s.
May 18, 2008
A black-and-white warbler’s two-syllable whisper; drumroll from a Good God bird. The clock is blinking—what time is it? The patter of rain.