A catbird taps at the dining room window—the same glass that taunts the female cardinal. A tiny shadow darts through the grass: meadow vole.
cardinal
February 24, 2012
Rain has erased the last patches of snow. The lilac bush gives birth to a cardinal, a wren, four white-crowned sparrows and a chipmunk.
February 21, 2012
Sunrise. The bluebird warbles once, as if unsure whether it really will be that kind of day. The cardinal keeps singing his one good note.
December 29, 2011
The male cardinal lands on a top branch of the lilac and sits nearly motionless for ten minutes, an odd red triangle against the woods.
July 9, 2011
Wood thrush and cardinal song. A male hummingbird chases a silver-spotted skipper off the beebalm, then retreats to a dead branch to preen.
March 28, 2011
A little less cold, a little less clear as we inch toward the warm mud of April. The cardinal pays her morning visit to her glassy rival.
January 22, 2011
Intense cold, and a stillness so deep the trains can barely be heard. A cardinal flickers like a pilot light under the bridal wreath bush.
November 30, 2010
A cold, wet morning that must test the hunters’ mettle. Over the rain, the rattle of the window-tapping cardinal clashing with her nemesis.
October 30, 2010
Now that summer’s past, the cardinal has gone back to harassing her reflection. The frost-whitened myrtle bed. A barberry turned to flame.
August 18, 2010
Overcast and cool, with the beeping of quarry trucks. A pair of cardinals land above the dry creek bed, exchange a few chirps, and fly off.
August 11, 2010
Scattered bird calls—cardinal, vireo, field sparrow—all sound perfunctory except for the goldfinches, who are in thistle heaven at last.
June 20, 2010
The sun-struck meadow gives off a thin mist. From the front window, the tap of a female cardinal’s bill against her rival in the glass.
June 7, 2010
Cardinal song on a cool morning—those January notes. Up in the woods, a patch of sun on rain-slick huckleberry leaves shines white as snow.
March 31, 2010
Clear, clear, clear: say the same thing often enough, the cardinal knows, and one day you’ll be right. The east is red with maple blossoms.