In one direction, the waxy chatter of goldfinches; in the other, a mob of crows. I go in before the sun comes out—my legs are too cold.
American goldfinch
A slit in the gray clouds widening to reveal the sun, like a sudden eye. Goldfinches feasting in the crown of a birch become silhouettes.
Just below freezing; the snow lays here and melts there. A flock of finches in the treetops—punctuation marks in search of a sentence.
Cedar waxwings crowd into the tops of the tall locusts, harried by goldfinches. High above, two swifts arc and swoop against the blue.
Crystal-clear sky crossed by flocks of goldfinches. Church bells clang the 8 o’clock hour, a sad exultation that once meant time for school.
Hard to pin-point the emotions evoked by familiar bird calls, beyond just “blue jay feeling,” “nuthatch feeling,” “goldfinch feeling.”
When the rain finally slackens off, I can hear a vireo, goldfinches, the catbird, a train horn, and the throaty roar of a well-fed creek.
Overcast and cold. Goldfinches flit through the yard, one of them already in his summer molt: pace Frost, their first gold is green.
Windy and cold. The rising sun peeks out from beneath a lid of clouds: in the sudden glow, goldfinches, their squeaky calls.
Goldfinches repopulate a leafless birch and sit eating seeds. From the east, the sound of the quarry’s crusher, its breakfast of stones.
Mist turns into drizzle. A small, filmy-winged fly drifts back and forth across the yard, heedless as a texting teen. A goldfinch monologue.
The continual, three-syllable chatter of goldfinches. Wild garlic stalks have begun to straighten and the heads to shed their white masks.
The humidity has dropped at last. A goldfinch lands on a stalk of purple bergamot, bobbing in the breeze like an extra, yellow flower.
Clear and cold. The continual, waxy chatter of goldfinches, their plumage now a patchwork of winter’s dull green and summer’s crayon yellow.