When the neighbors’ rooster finally stops crowing, the incessant singing of the red-eyed vireo seems as hushed as the murmur of a stream.
red-eyed vireo
May 24, 2016
The crackle of a grackle. The boosterism of a rooster. The incessant cheer of a vireo. My ears take refuge in the creek, that labile Babel.
May 20, 2016
The warmest morning in weeks. The bracken in my yard that the deer mowed down has raised defiant fists. A red-eyed vireo drones on and on.
August 17, 2015
Still cool at sunrise. A large beetle zooms past. Faint noise from the highway. The desultory calls of a red-eyed vireo.
July 9, 2015
Red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting: the primary colors of this morning’s diminished chorus. The dog twitches in her sleep.
June 27, 2015
Fragments of vireo and goldfinch song mingle with the rain’s thunderous applause. A few filmy-winged insects still somehow manage to fly.
May 23, 2015
Three degrees above freezing. The dead vireo in my garden is perfectly preserved except for its missing eyes—red prizes for ants.
July 8, 2012
I fail to spot him on the branch or on the wing, this noisy vireo with an insomniac’s eye—a genius at self-effacement and at holding forth.
June 16, 2012
Small flies cavort on the porch floor despite the morning chill, sure of the heat to come. The red-eyed vireo is beginning to sound weary.
July 11, 2011
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.
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.