Incessant rain. A chitter of goldfinches halfway through their molt: part green, part yellow, like spicebush or forsythia in reverse.
American goldfinch
That first snow still cloaks the frozen earth. When the wind dies, I can hear the 75 finches at my parents’ birdfeeder, a twittering bedlam.
A goldfinch gone green lands among walnut leaves that have gone yellow. Below, a juvenile red-bellied woodpecker, nape turning orange.
Overcast and quiet except for a red-eyed vireo and a male goldfinch, whose head is already beginning to turn green, like rusting bronze.
Scattered bird calls—cardinal, vireo, field sparrow—all sound perfunctory except for the goldfinches, who are in thistle heaven at last.
Two male towhees trade tweets from opposite sides of the yard. At the top of the dead cherry tree, a goldfinch swivels back and forth.
Mid-morning sun: I’m almost baking until the wind blows, cool as midnight, the chitter of goldfinches interrupted by a raven’s cronk.
Yellow at daybreak: forsythia, daffodils, the spicebush by the springhouse, a flock of goldfinches… what else? The sun crests the ridge.
Garlic tops still point at the ground like dysfunctional minarets. Goldfinches weave through the canopy, circling the thistle-spined sun.