Clear and cold, with sound out of the east: the rumble and squeal of a slow freight train. Jays jeer. A wren puts the kettle on.
Carolina wren
September 6, 2023
A nuthatch calling just inside the woods. From the barnyard, a Carolina wren. Chickadee in the yard. Then the sun comes up and it’s a party.
August 21, 2023
Sun glimmering in a sky so light blue as to appear white. The Carolina wren’s motor sounds as if it’s running out of gas. Mosquitoes begin to circle.
August 17, 2023
Sunrise filling every cloud’s belly with pink as the Carolina wren trills over and over—once for each cloud, it seems.
August 13, 2023
Sun in the treetops. A Carolina wren keeps answering a flicker, as if trying to master its call. Tree crickets. A train horn.
August 6, 2023
A mosquito sings her dark need into my ear. Day advances like a slow machine of squeaking towhees and whirring wrens.
August 5, 2023
Cloudy, but the clouds are paper-thin, so the Carolina wren bobbing on a branch casts a thin shadow.
July 30, 2023
Clear and cool. A migrant wood thrush calls softly at first light. It’s very still. Then the wrens wake up.
July 21, 2023
Fog at first light. The random percussion of rain dripping off the trees slowly joined by bird calls: pewee, towhee, song sparrow, wren…
July 10, 2023
Clearing after sunrise. A Carolina wren lands briefly on my open book, between two haiku.
June 26, 2023
Thick fog. The wren sings from the other side of the house, seemingly unconcerned by losing two days’ labor when their unbalanced new nest fell out of the rafters.
June 25, 2023
A pair of Carolina wrens have mostly completed a nest in the rafters that wasn’t there yesterday morning, seven feet away from my chair. I love the soft sounds they make to each other as they build.
June 12, 2023
Rain! That unfamiliar whisper rising to the level of a murmur. And a Carolina wren rushing about, making sure the world knows.
May 21, 2023
In the half-light of dawn, a Carolina wren burbles aggressively inches away from my ear. Three fledgling wrens blink awake in the porch rafters.