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.
blue-gray gnatcatcher
6/15/2023
Unseasonably cool at daybreak. Underneath the excited back-and-forth of a redstart and an indigo bunting, the soft calls of a gnatcatcher.
5/20/2023
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.
5/15/2023
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.
4/23/2023
Cool and damp at sunrise. A small cottontail grazes at the woods’ edge: a salad of tiny leaves. A gnatcatcher’s soft soliloquy.
7/5/2022
Humid and cool. Gnatcatcher parents and fledglings exchange silvery calls as a disheveled fledgling wren watches me from the eaves.
6/15/2022
The sun clears the trees sooner than seems possible, and the gnatcatcher’s extreme excitement is not a good sign. A sapsucker calls.
6/10/2022
A gnatcatcher is searching for breakfast on the undersides of leaves. A redstart lands on the porch railing and cocks her head at me.
5/30/2022
Clear and cool. A gnatcatcher scoops a caterpillar off a walnut leaf and swipes it against a branch three times before swallowing.
4/13/2022
The sun eases out of the clouds. A gnatcatcher is flying sorties from atop the lilac, which has just burst its buds.
7/21/2021
A few drops of rain. A gnatcatcher fluttering up from the weeds to a walnut tree swerves to—I assume—catch a gnat.