The soft-edged shadows glimmer with frost; the stripes of dim sunlight glisten. Only the Carolina wren insists on clarity, clarity, clarity.
Carolina wren
November 7, 2012
A smudge of a sun sits in the crown of the tall tulip poplar like a grotesque fruit. Bluebird and Carolina wren song: a joyous soundtrack.
September 26, 2012
An agitated Carolina wren progresses from between-station radio static noises to musical chirps, then silence. A freight train wails.
September 1, 2012
Something in the lilac attracts half-hearted alarms from a chickadee, two titmice and a wren. The lilac leaves hang limp in the humid air.
August 7, 2012
The sun climbs through the big red maple. A young Carolina wren sits on the springhouse gable, still and quiet, just swiveling its head.
July 2, 2012
In the morning coolness, I glimpse a pair of Carolina wrens perched on a lilac branch, touching bills to pass some winged morsel.
May 1, 2012
An hour past sunrise. The downpour past, a Carolina wren and a common yellowthroat both sing in fast waltz time.
April 11, 2012
The Carolina wren goes from querulous chirps to full-throated denunciations from the top of the dead cherry tree. But the snow continues.
February 25, 2012
Snow blows sideways and rises from the ground in snaky spirals. A Carolina wren dances on top of the stone wall like a wind-up toy.
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.
January 8, 2012
A wren sits grooming itself in the sun on the peak of the springhouse roof, fluffing out its breast feathers, probing under its wings.
December 23, 2011
The Carolina wrens are all worked up about something. One of them lands on the porch railing and harrangues me, bobbing like an angry toy.
December 18, 2011
A pair of Carolina wrens—one in the lilac, the other in the dead cherry—flit from branch to branch, tasting the new-fallen snow.
November 26, 2011
Another warm morning. A Carolina wren pops out of the bridal wreath bush like a rabbit from a magician’s hat and ascends the lilac, singing.