Last night’s snow clings to yesterday’s ice: trees as confectionery. The call and response of Carolina wrens—her brusque two notes.
Carolina wren
November 29, 2019
Overcast and cold. Every few minutes, another boom as our neighbors sight in their rifles. A wren and a nuthatch sound mildly irritated.
November 17, 2019
The usual pair of golden-crowned kinglets foraging nearby. I pish them into the cedar for a better view and get told off by a Carolina wren.
May 13, 2019
Cold rain; the treetops disappearing into cloud. A Carolina wren lands on the railing with a beak full of leaves and a self-important air.
March 20, 2019
A Carolina wren yells from the balustrade while his mate rummages around inside the old hornets’ nest. The sky slowly turns white.
March 6, 2019
Overcast and bitter cold. A Carolina wren comes out from under the house and rummages in the dry leaves behind the oil tanks.
March 1, 2019
Something has been ripping into the old hornet’s nest on the porch ceiling: pieces of its gray paper litter the fresh snow. A wren flies in.
February 22, 2019
The sun grows and shrinks as the clouds change in thickness. Two wrens pop out at once from under the porch, one on each side—vociferous.
February 20, 2019
Snowstorm. A Carolina wren pokes along the side of the house under the porch roof, right above my head. Sometimes it’s good to be ignored.
January 19, 2019
An almost unearthly calm, punctuated as ever by birds: woodpeckers, counter-singing wrens, a flock of juncos drinking from the dark stream.
December 31, 2018
Dawn. A Carolina wren drops like a ninja from its roost in the old hornets’ nest. The sky between the ridgetop trees turns to blood.
December 14, 2018
Warmish and almost sunny, with mist between the trees. The chickadees and wrens are denouncing something hidden in the small hollow maple.
December 9, 2018
On the snow-covered log beside the stream, the baby’s-handprint tracks of raccoons. A wren above the water burbling in counterpoint.
November 17, 2018
Where the stream fans out beside the springhouse, birds hop down the snowbanks and into the water to bathe: sparrows, juncos, Carolina wren.