High winds stir the trees like surf, a dead branch crashes every few minutes, but the small birds still forage, twittering in the birches.
black birch
10/26/2010
When the fog lifts, a flock of chickadees moves in, foraging in the mid-canopy, precipitating a shower of birch and locust leaves.
10/14/2010
The black locusts are beginning to yellow as the black birches beside them deepen to orange, alive with kinglets and glowing in the rain.
10/10/2010
The birches are astir with birds: migrant warblers, chickadees, and a kinglet darting from leaf to leaf, gold crown flashing among the gold.
9/17/2010
Due to the drought, the goldenrod display is subdued this year—but birch are turning three weeks early. September will have its yellow.
6/9/2010
Steady rain. A phoebe snatches insects from the undersides of birch leaves, and in the distant drone of an airplane I hear news of the sun.
12/7/2009
A broken-off locust limb held at a 45-degree angle by the black birches’ intricate crowns is thick enough to still wear a coat of snow.
9/16/2009
Last night the air was warm, but the stars gleamed like steel. This morning it’s overcast and cold. New splashes of yellow in the birches.
11/6/2008
The wind is out of the east, bringing routine news of violence to the pitted earth. A bare birch at the woods’ edge fills up with finches.
12/22/2007
Yakety-yak on the porch, dee dee dee in the birches, and everywhere a drip drip drip drip drip: gray solstice morning.