The first bergamots are in bloom, next to the first soapwort. In walnut-tree shade, the permanent shadow of a common yellowthroat’s mask.
common yellowthroat
6/30/2021
Mist in the meadow and among the trees where the first sunbeams look almost solid. Crows, wren, catbird, common yellowthroat.
5/8/2018
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.
7/9/2015
Red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting: the primary colors of this morning’s diminished chorus. The dog twitches in her sleep.
4/30/2015
A masked bird skulks through the lilac: the first common yellowthroat. Clouds gather, and the shadbush blossoms disappear into the sky.
8/22/2014
A trembling in the cattails: female yellowthroat. Birds flit through the treetops, smaller than the motes of grit in my ancient binoculars.
5/1/2012
An hour past sunrise. The downpour past, a Carolina wren and a common yellowthroat both sing in fast waltz time.
4/27/2011
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.
6/15/2010
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.
7/22/2009
6/17/2009
7/6/2008
The yellowthroat’s witchedywitchedywitchedy woke me at dawn. Now he sits silent on a curved claw of dead elm, insouciant in his black mask.
6/27/2008
Another reason not to mow the lawn: a male common yellowthroat feeds a querulous fledgling in the tall grass directly in front of the porch.