Cold, overcast and dreary. A warbler on migration-layover darts through the porch, inches from my face—a flash of black and yellow.
fall warblers
10/3/2013
Every morning more shards of ridge-top sky are visible through the trees. In the black birch’s yellow crown, yellow-rumped warblers.
9/17/2013
Were there really just two of them? Now every yellow birch leaf trembling in the breeze looks like another migrant warbler.
8/29/2013
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.
9/27/2012
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.
9/8/2011
Gauzy curtains of rain blow back and forth. A yellowish warbler darts through the lilac, harrying the dull-colored residents.
8/31/2011
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.
10/10/2010
The birches are astir with birds: migrant warblers, chickadees, and a kinglet darting from leaf to leaf, gold crown flashing among the gold.
8/22/2009
Below the porch, a generic chirp from a warbler of indeterminate species. I remember the Central American term for such skulkers: chipes.
8/16/2009
Something stirs in the silky dogwood across the road. I stroll over: blue berries, a warbler dressed for travel in its yellow-green suit.