Thick fog that lasts for hours. Sunrise must’ve been that big flock of red-winged blackbirds and grackles crackling and creaking like old doors.
common grackle
3/27/2017
Cold rain and fog. A flock of grackles wheels low over the house—the sudden waterfall sound of their wings all turning at once.
2/28/2017
Sun gleams on the rain-damp leaf duff. In the blue sky, a grackle cackles. Blue jays jeer. The lilac limbs are beginning to blush green.
6/1/2016
A silver-spotted skipper flies back and forth in front of the porch a dozen times. A grackle comes in croaking for a drink from the creek.
5/24/2016
The crackle of a grackle. The boosterism of a rooster. The incessant cheer of a vireo. My ears take refuge in the creek, that labile Babel.
5/21/2015
Momentary things: A chipmunk pressing the rain from its fur. The swaying of a branch from which a grackle has just taken flight.
5/14/2014
The barberry bush above the stream is in bloom, demure rows of yellow bells that smell like sperm. A grackle flies up—his raspy call.
5/19/2013
Each bird I see has something in its beak: wren—a streamer of dried grass, chickadee—a seed, towhee—a bundle of stalks, grackle—a millipede.
5/12/2010
Two grackles appear at the woods’ edge, iridescent black against the brightest green of the year. In the garden, the first yellow iris.
9/29/2008
Rising after daybreak, I search out scraps of darkness: a log sunk in the weeds, the rootball of a toppled tree, the sound of grackles.
9/20/2008
A gray, cold morning. The rusty-hinge scolding of a squirrel multiplies and turns into a flock of grackles, pivoting on its thousand wings.