Too dark to identify the small birds darting through the forest canopy. A walnut dislodged by a squirrel thumps hard against the ground.
fall warblers
The trees were full of warblers just before I came out, the resident naturalist informs me. Walnut leaves flutter down like shed feathers.
Another gloomy day brightened by a mixed flock of birds foraging at the woods’ edge, visitors tagging after locals to find the best spots.
Cold, overcast and dreary. A warbler on migration-layover darts through the porch, inches from my face—a flash of black and yellow.
Every morning more shards of ridge-top sky are visible through the trees. In the black birch’s yellow crown, yellow-rumped warblers.
Were there really just two of them? Now every yellow birch leaf trembling in the breeze looks like another migrant warbler.
The birch tree trembles with a flock of migrant warblers; I catch flashes of yellow and olive green. A yellow leaf tumbles to the ground.
A cranefly drifts through the yard so slowly, I wonder if it’s asleep. A lilac limb wobbles with warblers—don’t ask me what kind.
Gauzy curtains of rain blow back and forth. A yellowish warbler darts through the lilac, harrying the dull-colored residents.
A large flock of small birds in the trees at the edge of the woods, hovering, diving, fluttering up like brown leaves returning to the tree.
The birches are astir with birds: migrant warblers, chickadees, and a kinglet darting from leaf to leaf, gold crown flashing among the gold.
Below the porch, a generic chirp from a warbler of indeterminate species. I remember the Central American term for such skulkers: chipes.
Something stirs in the silky dogwood across the road. I stroll over: blue berries, a warbler dressed for travel in its yellow-green suit.