Sunshine for the first time in days. Filmy-winged insects drift in and out of the shadows where a blue-headed vireo sings its dreamy song.
blue-headed vireo
August 13, 2015
Clear and cold. A blue-headed vireo calls from a sun-drenched treetop in the yard, answered only by the resident wood pewee.
April 18, 2015
Flies and butterflies, gnats and gnatcatchers, blue-headed vireo, paper wasp. The towhee in the lilac bush starts his song with a stutter.
September 30, 2014
A blue-headed vireo on migration sings out of habit, perched near the top of the lilac. The free jazz of non-migrating geese—their ragged V.
August 25, 2014
Overcast and cool. Behind the occasional calls of wood pewee and solitary vireo, a continuous, grinding whine from the quarry. It’s Monday.
April 22, 2014
The myrtle that has taken over half my yard is in bloom: a scatter of blue. At the woods’ edge, two blue-headed vireos compare songs.
April 30, 2013
A blue-headed vireo foraging in a birch tree eats as it sings: slow and deliberate, a swallow of insect followed by a few, short notes.
September 24, 2012
I’m looking at a walnut when it lets go and thuds to the ground—the branch rocks like a diving board. A vireo calls softly from the woods.
August 4, 2012
Cool but humid. A vireo sings quietly, as if talking to himself. One of those quick, small flies cleans its wings with its hind-most legs.
July 5, 2012
At sunrise, two bird calls I associate with early spring: blue-headed vireo and chickadee. But the breeze is warm, the sun a lurid orange.
April 12, 2012
A bright blue morning. It takes the drone of a plane to draw my attention to a new bird call: the first blue-headed vireo of the year.
August 23, 2011
Even on such a cold morning, a faint hush of crickets. A cicada starts up: less a whine than a loud whisper. The slow chant of a vireo.
April 16, 2011
A morning so dark, the spring peepers call between showers. At the wood’s edge, slow as a dream, a blue-headed vireo repeats its only line.
April 3, 2010
Such a startling and ridiculous sound, the turkey’s gobble—like gargling with marbles. And then a blue-headed vireo’s quiet soliloquy.