Unseasonably cool with the pall of wildfire smoke over the region. It is as thick as a thin mist and burns my throat. But even though their sun is a lurid red, the goldfinches and a common yellowthroat keep singing.
American goldfinch
The sky is white, though the weather app insists it’s clear: thick haze from wildfires far to the north, I think. Goldfinches dominate the morning soundtrack, beginning to nest just as many of the migrants are wrapping it up.
Patches of dull sunlight brighten as the clouds thin. A distant whine of traffic is sweetened by goldfinch chatter in the treetops. Below the porch, wild garlics are beginning to raise their crane’s-bill heads.
Cool and still damp from yesterday afternoon’s downpour. Goldfinches go chittering through the treetops. Drinking the last of my tea in silence, I feel the absense of a resident Carolina wren pair—those endlessly enthusiastic assertions, and the female’s succinct replies.
Sun glimmering through a scrim of cirrus. The aftermath of the dawn chorus isn’t exactly silent; it just has longer pauses for breath… until the goldfinches go gadding about through the treetops like a rickety circus.
Heavily overcast and cold. A half hour past sunrise, only a field sparrow, a red-eyed vireo and an ovenbird still sing. A few goldfinches chitter in the treetops.
Crystal-clear and quiet as the sun goes from gold to yellow and leaves its nest of leaves. The waxy chatter of goldfinches gives way to the wheeze of a black-and-white warbler.
Clear and cold. The bird app identifies singers I cannot hear: ruby-crowned kinglet, American goldfinch, Canada goose. Ten minutes later, I do hear another lone goose go over, a slight note of panic in its honks.
Freezing mist—enough for drip-line percussion from the roof. The waxy chatter of finches up at my mother’s feeders. Down in the hollow, the thunder of a pileated woodpecker.
Rain starts at sunrise and tapers off a half hour later. In its wake: phoebe, pewee, goldfinch, Carolina wren. A cedar waxwing’s whistle.
Clear and still at sunrise, with a sheen of dew on the meadow. A screech owl trills in the distance, nearly drowned out by goldfinches.
Cool as an autumn morning, with twittering goldfinches in lieu of yellow leaves. Just inside the woods’ edge, two deer chase back and forth, pausing for breath six feet apart.
White sun in a white sky crossed by crows. Twittering goldfinches have the mid-morning chorus mostly to themselves, aside from one dogged towhee.
Out at dawn for the cardinal’s opening salvo and a mosquito nuzzling my neck. The twittering of goldfinches. An east-bound freight blows its horn.