Rain from a named storm seems special, like strands of hair from someone famous. Two spring peepers are calling, and faintly, the phoebe.
phoebe
April 5, 2018
A phoebe lands on a branch and flicks his tail, not fooled by the passing resemblance of scattered, zigzagging snowflakes to flying insects.
March 31, 2018
On the first morning of my married life, the sky is as blue as it gets. Phoebe, rooster, bluebird. The sparkle of frost gives way to sheen.
March 29, 2018
On a hillside once again nearly snow-free, the fog withdraws, advances and surrounds like the subtlest of foes. A phoebe’s insistent song.
October 1, 2017
A phoebe perches on the edge of the porch, only to get dive-bombed by a gnatcatcher. Relax, my friends! There are enough flies for everyone.
April 5, 2017
Deer follow their long-legged shadows through the trees. Three phoebes chase through the branches and three chipmunks through the leaf duff.
March 29, 2017
A pair of phoebes flutter under the porch eaves, see me and the dog and retreat to a nearby branch. The first daffodils nod in the breeze.
March 25, 2017
Bluebird. Wild turkey. The first phoebe’s soliloquy. Eventually he rounds the house and hovers under the porch roof, bill snapping on a fly.
September 24, 2016
Breezy and cool. Three phoebes hawk for insects along the woods’ edge while a young pine or blackpoll warbler flits through the goldenrod.
June 20, 2016
A burst of activity at the top of one of the tall locusts: chickadees scold, a phoebe catches gnats, and other birds sit shining in the sun.
June 5, 2016
Phoebes mate in the rain, their thin branch bobbing as they touch tails. I crush a slow flood-water mosquito with a clap of my hands.
May 17, 2016
A phoebe catches insects right in front of the porch with a sound like the snapping of fingers as each exoskeleton is crushed in its bill.
May 6, 2016
Two phoebes hawk insects by the springhouse, while Acadian and great-crested flycatchers call from the woods. It’s a bad day to be a fly.
April 11, 2016
It’s damp but not raining. A steady drizzle of birdsong, among which I hear a distant phoebe for the first time since the cold snap hit.