Ten minutes past sunrise, the catbird begins to improvise. The first mosquito welt of the day rises on the back of my hand.
catbird
June 11, 2024
Cold and gray. A catbird crosses the yard with a fecal sac from one of its nestlings in its beak. A male ruby-throated hummingbird buzzes the boot soles on my propped-up feet.
June 5, 2024
Heavily overcast and humid. A hen turkey’s anxious call. The springhouse catbird slipping out of her stream of consciousness to mew.
May 15, 2024
Gloomy and damp, with a shimmer of mizzle. The distant boom of dynamite at the quarry. A catbird improvises a few melodic lines. A breeze springs up.
September 3, 2023
Clear and not as cool. A catbird mews from the lilac. Rays of sun in the canopy are astir with gossamer wings.
July 14, 2023
The catbird mews and warbles, a hummingbird rockets back and forth, but it’s the mosquito’s still, small voice that gets my attention.
July 7, 2023
A foggy sunrise. The catbird circles the house, mimicking the Carolina wren on double speed.
May 14, 2023
A catbird running through his dawn monologue is drowned out by a whippoorwill. Fog forms in the lower hollow, extending a ghostly finger into the marsh.
June 19, 2022
A catbird looks for worms in the herb garden. The first bindweed trumpets blare their silent music into a cloudless sky.
May 17, 2022
Cool and clear as a morning in October. A catbird fresh from his bath picks insects off dogwood leaves with a fussy chirp between each morsel.
July 14, 2021
Out in time for the tail end of the dawn chorus: field sparrow, red-eyed vireo, pewee, goldfinches, catbird. No more wood thrushes, alas.
July 13, 2021
Stifling humidity. With so many birds done nesting now, the catbird is the lone singer, echoing like a musician in an empty club.
July 10, 2021
A male hummingbird buzzes in to the bergamot patch, but sips nectar from the soapwort instead. The catbird improvises on a towhee’s tune.
July 4, 2021
Catbird and tanager trading licks. For half a minute, a vagrant sunbeam sets one of the two mullein stalks aglow.