scarlet tanager – Page 3 – The Morning Porch

September 4, 2009

Dave Bonta September 4, 2009 2

Thin fog at dawn. From the woods’ edge, the familiar two-syllable call of a scarlet tanager sounds suddenly very much like goodbye.

Dave Bonta June 25, 2009

Beside the springhouse, the twittering zoom of a hummingbird’s courtship dive: from sunlight into cattail shadows and back. Tanager song.

Dave Bonta May 15, 2009

Sun through fog. Animals emerge and vanish like actors in a play, bringing their cries and silences: goldfinches, a raven, a pair of deer.

Dave Bonta May 14, 2009 1

A pair of tanagers foraging in the rain. The scarlet male trails the drab female onto a branch two feet from the porch, returning my gaze.

Dave Bonta May 9, 2009

Glimpses of a tanager, a catbird, two goldfinches, and a hummingbird taking a shit. Each tree is still in possession of its own green.

Dave Bonta June 8, 2008

The weird weAHHHHHHHHHHHoh calls of 17-year cicadas join the morning chorus for the first time. A male scarlet tanager flashes past my feet.

Dave Bonta May 15, 2008

Cloudy and cool. A tanager’s plucked string; no glimpse of scarlet. Where are they off to, the hummingbirds that keep zooming past my porch?