A pair of phoebes fly in and out of the old nest under the springhouse eaves. Done foraging, a groundhog barrels full-tilt toward its den.
phoebe
March 27, 2014
A second male phoebe has returned. Their warring warbles echo off the hillside at sunrise, interspersed with a cowbird’s liquid notes.
March 22, 2014
Thinking the phoebes should be back, I cup hands to ears: nothing. 20 minutes later, one rounds the house and flutters in front of my face.
October 2, 2013
Sunny, warm, and quiet except for the distant wail of a locomotive, a phoebe calling at the woods’ edge, a cricket, the rustling of leaves.
September 24, 2013
Sunny and cold. A phoebe calling up by the barn, as if this were some morning in March—and he was just arriving, not preparing to leave.
May 9, 2013
When the mid-morning rain eases up, the phoebe comes out to hawk for gnats, and I hear the first wood thrush singing—those pure, sad notes.
May 4, 2013
Low clouds fly east to west. From above the road, the loud snap of a phoebe’s beak on the spot where some fly had been a moment before.
April 12, 2013
A phoebe perched high in a red maple shakes rain from its feathers, its tail twitching up and down, up and down among the dark red blooms.
April 5, 2013
The phoebe sings lustily for the first time in days, hawking flies on the sunny side of the barn. Bits of cattail down rise from the marsh.
March 30, 2013
The first phoebe is finally back, chanting his name in the barnyard. Marcescent leaves of a scarlet oak glow orange, back-lit by the sun.
September 6, 2012
When I come out, a committee of flies is convening on my chair, despite the chill. Ten minutes pass without a single bird call, then phoebe.
July 28, 2012
Sitting outside with my laptop, blind to the world. A phoebe flies past two feet from my nose, followed a minute later by a hummingbird.
July 27, 2012
A phoebe dives at a cabbage white butterfly and comes up short. It zigzags after it, hovers, snaps again: only a tiny piece of white wing.
June 9, 2012
A warm morning at last. Waxwings whistle at the tops of the tall locusts, but from the phoebe nest, only silence: the young have fledged.