Carolina wren

Tuesday October 23, 2018

Dave Bonta October 23, 2018

A swarm of maple helicopters. I sneeze and a wren begins to sing. A kinglet rotates in time to the music. We’re in this dance together.

Dave Bonta September 20, 2018

The laboring motor in the septic service truck, pumping out our tanks—I try to hear anything else. The Carolina wren. An electric drill.

Dave Bonta September 13, 2018 2

Foggy at dawn. When I open the door, a Carolina wren zips out of the old hornets’ nest under the porch roof and disappears into the lilac.

Dave Bonta March 12, 2018

Cold and gloomy, but the yard seethes with birds: juncos, cardinals, wren. A hundred yards away, a hawk sits on a limb, bedeviled by crows.

Dave Bonta March 3, 2018

Titmouse, chickadee, wren. I squint into the sun. The bitter wind rattles the cover of the magazine beside me—which, I notice, is Rattle.

Dave Bonta February 10, 2018

Two degrees above freezing and I feel over-dressed. Icicles drop from the eaves. A Carolina wren sings his “tea kettle” song in a minor key.

Dave Bonta January 16, 2018 3

Cat tracks in the snow disappear under the house. The Carolina wrens have survived another cold snap; will they be killed in their sleep?

Dave Bonta January 6, 2018

Another brutally cold morning. From somewhere under the house where the heating ducts run, the trilling of a Carolina wren.

Dave Bonta December 25, 2017

Christmas has come like a vengeful spirit, roaring on the ridgetop, plastering the weather sides of trees with snow. A Carolina wren’s song.

Dave Bonta December 21, 2017

Clear and very still. Frost’s fine needlework on the dead grass in front of the springhouse, where a wren keeps up an agitated chirping.