Another flat-white sunrise, today with the death scream of a rabbit. Crows, woodpeckers. The Carolina wren with his list of demands.
Carolina wren
Cold and clearing off for sunrise. From some sheltered spot, a Carolina wren is duetting with the wind.
Very still under a bone-white sky. A Carolina wren rummages under the house. In the treetops a gray squirrel takes an improbable leap.
Day slips in among torrents of rain. The woods are mangy with scattered patches of old snow. The gurgle of a wren.
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.
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.
Half an hour till sunrise. The sky’s gray matter is deeply furrowed. The caroling of a Carolina wren briefly dispels the gloom.
A gloomy dawn lightened by brief scatterings of sleet. The muffled notes of a Carolina wren issue from a hole in the road bank.
Dawn. A rustle in the leaves as bits of ice and half-frozen raindrops begin falling from the sky. From the lilac, the ticking of a wren.
Sunrise glowing orange between the half-naked ridgetop oaks. The yard fills with small birds: sparrows, kinglets, the inevitable wren.
Between dawn and sunrise, a small rainstorm’s pleasant susurration drowns out everything else. As it eases, a Carolina wren takes over, caroling in a minor key.
Still no frost. A Carolina wren putt-putts at the woods’ edge. From the powerline, a white-throated sparrow’s plaintive “Oh sweet Canada…”
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.
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.