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.
catbird
6/19/2022
A catbird looks for worms in the herb garden. The first bindweed trumpets blare their silent music into a cloudless sky.
5/17/2022
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.
7/14/2021
Out in time for the tail end of the dawn chorus: field sparrow, red-eyed vireo, pewee, goldfinches, catbird. No more wood thrushes, alas.
7/13/2021
Stifling humidity. With so many birds done nesting now, the catbird is the lone singer, echoing like a musician in an empty club.
7/10/2021
A male hummingbird buzzes in to the bergamot patch, but sips nectar from the soapwort instead. The catbird improvises on a towhee’s tune.
7/4/2021
Catbird and tanager trading licks. For half a minute, a vagrant sunbeam sets one of the two mullein stalks aglow.
6/30/2021
Mist in the meadow and among the trees where the first sunbeams look almost solid. Crows, wren, catbird, common yellowthroat.
6/28/2021
Sunny and hot. A catbird skulks in lilac shade. The unfurling beaks of wild garlic point in all directions, like a nervous flock of cranes.
6/12/2021
Wet, but at least it’s not raining. Wood thrush, vireo and tanager songs mingle at the woods’ edge. The wingbeats of a catbird.
5/28/2021
Dawn stealing influence from the just-past-full moon. The whip-poor-will awakening the catbird.
5/24/2021
Waiting for rain, everything sounds like an augury—catbird, chipmunk, great-crested flycatcher—and just before the first drops, that hush.
5/23/2021
The dame’s-rocket is at its height; my overgrown front yard is the equal of any garden. The catbird seems to concur.
5/16/2021
The catbirds are much more furtive now going into the barberry that hides their nest. Two cuckoos call up a bit of rain.