Back to more typical March weather, gloomy and cold. The stream gurgles low, the wren gurgles high, and two crows wing their way in silence to a breakfast of bones.
Carolina wren
February 17, 2022
A crow and a Carolina wren take turns issuing three-beat calls, as if debating: CawCawCaw. TeakettleTeakettleTeakettle. It starts to rain.
February 15, 2022
I love these frigid mornings with their gift of silence. The stream gurgling out from under my yard. Nuthatches. Wren. A distant screech owl.
January 23, 2022
A warmer morning, and all the birds are calling: Carolina wren, robin, crows, a flicker. Squirrels chase back and forth across the snow.
December 25, 2021
Little is audible over the drumming of the rain but a train horn—and of course the Carolina wren, sounding as insistently joyous as ever.
December 21, 2021
Solstice, and the ground is white with frost. The stream has subsided to the quietest of gurgles. Assorted chirps from sparrows and the inevitable wren.
December 17, 2021
Mid-morning sun through thin clouds. A wren calls in one direction; goldfinches in another. The yard’s only mullein stalk trembles in the wind.
December 14, 2021
A Carolina wren heralds the dawn from atop the springhouse roof, his mate counter-singing—as ornithologists call her answering Shhhhhh!
November 17, 2021
Rising late to a sky as gray as my head. Quarry trucks are beeping. The Carolina wren has switched to a minor key.
November 16, 2021
A wren calls under the porch. It’s five degrees below freezing. An inversion layer brings the whine of tires over the ridge, red with sunrise.
November 9, 2021
Dawn silence. A distant Carolina wren. I’m standing outside in my PJs enjoying the relative warmth (38F) when I spot the first cloud in days.
October 23, 2021
A dark and rainy dawn. One especially well-harmonized train horn and the sparrows and wrens wake up.
September 20, 2021
Spring peeper just after moonset. Then whippoorwill. Wood thrush. Carolina wren. Phoebe. A pileated woodpecker cackles and it’s day.
September 18, 2021
Standing out front talking with my mom, I watch the fog behind her turn from pink to orange to gold. A Carolina wren adds color commentary.