The birds seem unusually active; there must be a fresh bloom of aerial plankton. Even the brown thrasher brings his jazz to the yard.
brown thrasher
Thursday April 12, 2018
A brown creeper scuttles up an oak. A raven flies low over the house—its heavy wingbeats. The first brown thrasher appears in the lilac.
Thursday April 20, 2017
The rhyming couplets of a brown thrasher. A blue-headed vireo’s dreamy soliloquy. When the sun comes out, raindrops glisten on every twig.
Friday July 01, 2016
A brown thrasher sings behind the house, repeating each line as usual like a didactic jazz soloist. The sun struggles blearily to come out.
Thursday April 28, 2016
Cold drizzle. A brown thrasher improvises at the woods’ edge, and I spot the first tent caterpillar web—a tiny white flag in a wild cherry.
Friday April 17, 2015
A brown thrasher’s loud improvisations. For a moment I think some new type of tree is in bloom, but it’s only the rain beading every twig.
Thursday April 18, 2013
The brown thrasher who’s been improvising steadily for half an hour falls silent. A moment later I hear the cak-cak-cak of a Cooper’s hawk.
Monday April 25, 2011
A white haze on the bank above the road: the shadbush is finally beginning to blossom. A brown thrasher in the yard says everything twice.