Crystal-clear sunrise, with a bluebird warbling by the barn. A downy woodpecker at the woods’ edge has found the perfect tenor-tuned snag to rattle, in response to a distant pileated woodpecker’s thunder.
bluebird
A damp, gray dawn sweetened by the calls of field sparrows and a bluebird up by the barn. A small shower passes through the woods, rustling like a millipede in the dead leaves.
The sun finally clears the trees at 9:00. A bluebird and a phoebe call back and forth in the yard, an ovenbird and a red-eyed vireo talk over each other in the woods, and in the valley, traffic, a tractor, a train.
Sun almost shining through the fog. A winter wren warbles from the marsh. Up by the garage, bluebirds. It feels like March, with December light.
Thick fog and silence. A song sparrow pipes up just before sunrise. It gets darker again. A bluebird warbles as the rain resumes.
A few degrees above freezing, heavily overcast, and dead quiet apart from the spring’s low gurgle. A bluebird sings two notes and lapses back into silence.
Daffodils are out of the ground around the old dog statue, the surrounding yard moldy-looking from the light frost. A distant bluebird.
Warm rain. The snow has shrunk to a few scrofulous patches in the woods. Half an hour before sunrise, a bluebird is singing.
The waxy surfaces of laurel and rhododendron leaves glitter in the sun. A bluebird sits silently on a branch, waiting for insects to stir.
It’s humid. A bluebird sings up by the garage, and in the woods, a black-throated green warbler. The first tiger swallowtail flutters past.
On the first morning of my married life, the sky is as blue as it gets. Phoebe, rooster, bluebird. The sparkle of frost gives way to sheen.
Clear sky. A bluebird warbling up by the barn. High overhead, a pair of ravens fly close together, uttering their most musical croaks.
Bluebird. Wild turkey. The first phoebe’s soliloquy. Eventually he rounds the house and hovers under the porch roof, bill snapping on a fly.
Cloudless and still. As the thermometer needle inches past freezing, the first bluebird of spring warbles once up by the barn.