Partly cloudy an hour after sunrise, and too cool for most flying insects. A pair of gnatcatchers at the woods’ edge comb the undersides of leaves for their breakfast.
blue-gray gnatcatcher
Clear and cool. The wheezing of a gnatcatcher from the tallest walnut tree. A gangly hangingfly comes fluttering under the eaves.
An hour past sunrise, a gnatcatcher picks off the few survivors of a tent caterpillar colony in a black cherry at the woods’ edge. A hummingbird circles my red bandanna.
Overcast and cool. I look up from my book to see a hummingbird flying aggressively back and forth a foot away from a gnatcatcher perched in the lilac, who seems unimpressed.
A few clouds disappearing into deep blue on a morning so clear, I feel even I could do the gnatcatcher’s job and find each drifting speck of nutriment.
Some prolonged glimpses of the sun. Gnats circle my head despite the gnatcatcher calling non-stop from the edge of the yard.
Steady rain. A gnatcatcher flutters to find breakfast on the undersides of leaves, then retreats to the shelter of the lilac to shake the water off. A chipmunk runs under my chair to eat one seed at the far end of the porch.
Unseasonably cool at daybreak. Underneath the excited back-and-forth of a redstart and an indigo bunting, the soft calls of a gnatcatcher.
The snap of a gnatcatcher’s beak behind the lilac, and just beyond, a wood pewee’s melismatic drawl. The sun glimmers briefly through a hole in the clouds.
Clear and cool. The sun struggles to infiltrate the forest canopy, where a great-crested flycatcher is whinnying. Gnatcatchers forage on the undersides of leaves.
Cool and damp at sunrise. A small cottontail grazes at the woods’ edge: a salad of tiny leaves. A gnatcatcher’s soft soliloquy.
Humid and cool. Gnatcatcher parents and fledglings exchange silvery calls as a disheveled fledgling wren watches me from the eaves.
The sun clears the trees sooner than seems possible, and the gnatcatcher’s extreme excitement is not a good sign. A sapsucker calls.
A gnatcatcher is searching for breakfast on the undersides of leaves. A redstart lands on the porch railing and cocks her head at me.