Clear and still, except for the distant beeping of quarry trucks. A common yellowthroat darts through the lilac bush, foraging for breakfast. A gray squirrel sounds the hawk alarm.
common yellowthroat
June 11, 2023
Rising late, I’m in time to see the last cottontail going back under the house for a mid-morning nap. Cuckoos call in the distance. Common yellowthroat. Wood pewee.
July 5, 2021
The first bergamots are in bloom, next to the first soapwort. In walnut-tree shade, the permanent shadow of a common yellowthroat’s mask.
June 30, 2021
Mist in the meadow and among the trees where the first sunbeams look almost solid. Crows, wren, catbird, common yellowthroat.
May 8, 2018
The yellowthroat’s song is half submerged in noise from the quarry. A heron flies over. I watch my breath drift away toward the east.
July 9, 2015
Red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting: the primary colors of this morning’s diminished chorus. The dog twitches in her sleep.
April 30, 2015
A masked bird skulks through the lilac: the first common yellowthroat. Clouds gather, and the shadbush blossoms disappear into the sky.
August 22, 2014
A trembling in the cattails: female yellowthroat. Birds flit through the treetops, smaller than the motes of grit in my ancient binoculars.
May 1, 2012
An hour past sunrise. The downpour past, a Carolina wren and a common yellowthroat both sing in fast waltz time.
April 27, 2011
A song so familiar it takes several minutes to register that this is new, the first I’ve heard it since last fall: common yellowthroat.
June 15, 2010
A male yellowthroat flies from perch to perch without singing. It occurs to me that most of the music in my life wasn’t made for human ears.
July 22, 2009
June 17, 2009
July 6, 2008
The yellowthroat’s witchedywitchedywitchedy woke me at dawn. Now he sits silent on a curved claw of dead elm, insouciant in his black mask.