Half past midnight in the moonlit forest, a cuckoo tried out the screech owl’s call. This morning, just a red-eyed vireo repeating himself.
red-eyed vireo
June 12, 2011
Wood thrush, cerulean warbler, red-eyed vireo, Baltimore oriole—song by song I tick them off as yellow petals fall from the tulip tree.
August 29, 2010
As the plane fades in the distance, they return: a towhee, two lethargic vireos, a chipmunk’s water-drip-steady clucks, the garden cricket.
August 25, 2010
Overcast and quiet except for a red-eyed vireo and a male goldfinch, whose head is already beginning to turn green, like rusting bronze.
August 11, 2010
Scattered bird calls—cardinal, vireo, field sparrow—all sound perfunctory except for the goldfinches, who are in thistle heaven at last.
May 1, 2010
The buzz of a black-throated green warbler, a catbird’s brassy solo, the noodling of a red-eyed vireo: May comes in with a new soundtrack.
August 26, 2009
In the light breeze, one clump of cattails waves out of sync; the sound of chewing. A few perfunctory phrases from a red-eyed vireo.
May 17, 2009
May 12, 2009
July 31, 2008
A solitary or blue-headed vireo—”more deliberate, higher, sweeter” (Peterson) than its red-eyed cousin—calling at the edge of the woods.
May 30, 2008
In one direction, a singing wood thrush; in the other, a red-eyed vireo. Evocative refrain or dull repetition? It’s all in the delivery.