Catbird and tanager trading licks. For half a minute, a vagrant sunbeam sets one of the two mullein stalks aglow.
scarlet tanager
Saturday July 03, 2021
On a dark and cloudy morning, the green of the woods’ edge seems even more intense. The scarlet tanager sounds hoarse with longing.
Saturday June 12, 2021
Wet, but at least it’s not raining. Wood thrush, vireo and tanager songs mingle at the woods’ edge. The wingbeats of a catbird.
Thursday May 06, 2021
Goldfinches, scarlet tanager, great-crested flycatcher, catbird, towhee… no composer, no conductor. All music needs is a listener.
Thursday May 21, 2020
A hawthorn blooming at the woods’ edge glows each time the sun comes out. A scarlet tanager calls just beyond: that plucked banjo string.
Thursday May 09, 2019
Singers change with the weather: in the mist, wood thrush and cerulean warbler. Scarlet tanager in the drizzle. Indigo bunting in the rain.
Sunday September 11, 2016
Cool and clear, with sunlight just beginning to gild the treetops. From the woods’ edge, the plucked-string call of a migrant tanager.
Saturday August 27, 2016
Cool with a scrim of cloud. From high in the canopy, a scarlet tanager’s hoarse song—the first in weeks. A sudden sweet smell I can’t place.
Sunday June 19, 2016
Another bright sunny morning—meaning the shadows are deep and full of unseen singers: scarlet tanager, cerulean warbler, even a wood thrush.
Sunday May 15, 2016
The leaves on the sapling tulip tree are already big enough to blow backwards. A tanager’s plucked-string call. It begins to sleet.
Sunday July 05, 2015
The sun emerging from mid-morning haze makes the rain-damp leaves shine. A scarlet tanager sings just out of sight at the wood’s edge.
Tuesday June 23, 2015
An early-morning storm rumbles off to the north. Flashes of scarlet: tanager at the woods’ edge, ruby-throated hummingbird at the beebalm.
Thursday June 04, 2015
Just audible over the tractor: a tanager’s hoarse song. The male flicker flies out of its nest hole carrying an offspring’s white fecal sac.
Saturday May 09, 2015
The hole in the dead elm is emitting puffs of dust: a flicker cleans house. Just beyond: scarlet tanager! Then the cardinal’s humdrum red.