The briefest opening in the clouds for sunrise. The first brown thrasher drops by to sing a few bars. Then the squeaky wheels of goldfinches, converging on my mother’s feeders.
American goldfinch
December 26, 2023
Rain tapering into mist and drizzle. A squirrel finds a black walnut next to the road, swiftly de-husks it and carries it away. The sky brightens. A goldfinch lisps a single note.
November 24, 2023
Overcast but bright. I watch small flocks of birds move through the tops of the birches: juncos, kinglets, goldfinches, each skeletal crown studded with winged jewels.
November 9, 2023
it starts raining just as I come out on the porch, completing the November trinity: cold, gray, and wet. Goldfinch chatter. The keening of truck tires on the interstate.
September 13, 2023
Cool and quiet, once all the newly arrived night travelers have stopped chirping. Patches of blue sky appear. A goldfinch twitters half-heartedly.
August 10, 2023
It’s raining and I’m mesmerized by the radar map, its blue and purple blobs. When the downpour begins to abate, the first thing I hear is the twittering of goldfinches.
July 20, 2023
Nuthatch scolding a gray squirrel, who scratches himself with a hind leg. The rising sun takes its place among the goldfinches.
June 21, 2023
The sun rising through high-altitude murk isn’t much brighter than the goldfinches chattering in the treetops, less than three hours till the solstice.
May 27, 2023
Another clear, cold morning with little dew. Goldfinches gad about in the tops of the locusts, seemingly oblivious to other birds’ territorial obsessions.
April 29, 2023
Thin fog full of goldfinch chatter and turkey gobbling. A rare red squirrel emerges from the woods and zips all around the springhouse.
April 25, 2023
Frost in the yard. How many tender young leaves will collapse and blacken at the sun’s touch? A goldfinch warbles in the treetops. A raven gargles.
August 8, 2022
Clear but with atmospheric haze, so the sunlight leaking down the trees looks murky behind the goldfinches’ purer yellow.
July 21, 2022
A few minutes before sunrise. Goldfinch chatter. A half-slice of moon hangs in the east like an icon of wintry cool.
July 13, 2022
Cool and clear. An asterisk of thistledown floats by—high time for the goldfinches to be nesting, I think. But they’re still gadding about in the treetops.