The buzz of a hummingbird sizing up her reflection in a porch window. From behind the house, a Carolina wren’s incessant harangue.
Carolina wren
A wren calls from the cattails like a deranged cheerleader, while in the woods, a vireo sounds as if it’s barely able to give a damn.
To the east, an agitated crow. Over by the cattails, an anxious wren. And behind me under the house, a groundhog bumps and scrapes.
A sharp-shinned hawk keeps chasing flickers in the yard; they yell at the effrontery and circle right back each time. A wren chatters alarm.
A red-spotted purple butterfly emerges into the glare like an emissary from the shadows. In the front garden, a burst of wren chatter.
The dark strips laid bare by the snow plow pullulate with juncos. One silhouette is different, bouncier, twitchier: the Carolina wren.
Despite the wind, yesterday’s snow still clings to the trees, like the sleep I keep trying to rub from my eyes. A wren’s ascending rattle.
The excited yelling of my young niece, out tracking animals in the snow with her grandmother. A Carolina wren scolds from the lilac bush.
A faint smell of sewage on the wind. A wren singing from atop the springhouse in the absence of a female supplies his own call-and-response.
The lilac trembles from without and within: rain hammers the leaves while birds jockey for shelter under them—towhee, cardinal, wren.
A green darner zips back and forth, reversing direction so abruptly it looks like a jump cut. From behind the house, the burbling of a wren.
Overcast and humid. A Carolina wren trills in short bursts, as if in imitation of the crickets creaking in the long grass.
A flat white sky; no wind. A pair of ravens fly low over the house, their croaks echoing off the ridge. The wrens chitter back and forth.
Freezing rain and sleet have turned the snow as rough as a lizard’s skin. A wren hops through the lilac, poking at the ground with his bill.