Another cool, Septemberish morning. A chipping sparrow lands on the garden walk beside the porch and gives me a quick, quizzical look.
chipping sparrow
First light. The half-moon has just cleared the trees. Behind the other bird calls, an almost continuous rattle from the chipping sparrows.
A chipping sparrow emerges from the lilac, pursued by the high-pitched cries of nestlings. It lands and wipes its bill on a dead branch.
A dry rattle in the pre-dawn dark: chipping sparrow. I lace up my boots, feeling for the eyelets like a clumsy reader of Braille.
That buzz from just inside the woods: chipping sparrow or worm-eating warbler? The four-fingered tulip tree leaves flip back and forth.
A chipping sparrow’s rattle, regular as surf. In the middle of the yard a multiflora rosebush ravaged by deer proffers its one white branch.
A chipping sparrow foraging below the porch at sunrise flits up to a branch with a beakful of fine, gray, nest-lining material: my own hair.
Chipping sparrows are mating on top of the wall around my garden: she raises her tail and he rushes forward for the one-second cloacal kiss.
The catbird sounds self-critical, adding a brief aside after every phrase. The chipping sparrow’s never-ending alarm sets a cricket off.