A white sky with a bright gash of sun. The red-eyed vireo falls silent, leaving only two crickets, one who chirps and one who trills. Then, inevitably, the wren.
Carolina wren
July 28, 2024
Another cool morning for a day forecast to be hot. A Carolina wren lands on the railing and cocks his head at me. A screech owl calls in the distance.
July 25, 2024
Cloudy and damp, with long intervals between bird calls. A small woodpecker’s improbably loud rattle from the black locusts sets off a pair of Carolina wrens.
July 21, 2024
Cool and partly cloudy. A fledgling wren at the woods’ edge begs to be fed—an interrogatory whine. The mob of feral garlic heads are splitting their hoods.
June 27, 2024
Clear and cool. Two Carolina wrens are burbling at the woods’ edge, while a cardinal is assaulting all the windows.
April 2, 2024
Rain. Every ditch runs with whitewater. Behind the bright forsythia, a gray wall of fog swallows the trees. Nevertheless, a wren.
March 5, 2024
Dripping at dawn has thickened into steady rain by the time I get out of the shower. The robins, cardinals, woodpeckers and wrens seem barely to have noticed. It’s spring.
March 4, 2024
Another flat-white sunrise, today with the death scream of a rabbit. Crows, woodpeckers. The Carolina wren with his list of demands.
February 14, 2024
Cold and clearing off for sunrise. From some sheltered spot, a Carolina wren is duetting with the wind.
February 11, 2024
Very still under a bone-white sky. A Carolina wren rummages under the house. In the treetops a gray squirrel takes an improbable leap.
January 28, 2024
Day slips in among torrents of rain. The woods are mangy with scattered patches of old snow. The gurgle of a wren.
January 25, 2024
Fog blurs the difference between the white below and above, the trees reduced to gray wraiths as a Carolina wren sings for the break of day.
January 12, 2024
The Carolina wren who sleeps above my laundry-room door forms a one-bird cheering section for the sunrise. Then the cloud-lid closes, and only the creek still sings.
December 22, 2023
Half an hour till sunrise. The sky’s gray matter is deeply furrowed. The caroling of a Carolina wren briefly dispels the gloom.