A downy woodpecker in the spicebush hangs from a silk moth cocoon, trying to reach the pupa, but the soft stuff defeats her hammer and nail.
spicebush
September 29, 2014
It’s cloudy, but the forest understorey glows with autumn color. A phoebe hawks flies from the spicebush, gurgling with satisfaction.
January 14, 2014
At the woods’ edge, a jumble of bone-white sticks: spicebush branches debarked by rabbits. A gray blur where a titmouse grooms in the lilac.
August 29, 2012
Around the side of the house, a male goldfinch gorges on spicebush berries—silent for once, as if unwilling to share his find.
August 19, 2012
I get up to pick the ripe berries on the spicebush in my garden. Allspice aroma wafts up from the red drupes as I pinch them off the twigs.
March 20, 2012
The spicebush is a haze of yellow beyond the springhouse. Another too-warm morning. What will be left of spring by warbler time?
October 7, 2010
A black-throated blue warbler alights in the dead cherry. I follow it to the spicebush, where yellow-throated vireos sing bright red notes.
September 26, 2010
Three migrant catbirds land in the spicebush beside my front door, drawn by the berries’ stop-sign red. Between each berry, a scolding mew.
April 5, 2010
Yellow at daybreak: forsythia, daffodils, the spicebush by the springhouse, a flock of goldfinches… what else? The sun crests the ridge.
April 20, 2009
Hard rain with a bit of wind. But dreariness is impossible with so many variations on yellow: spicebush, forsythia, daffodils, pussy willow.
November 9, 2008
Cold and overcast. Four silent bluebirds drop into the spicebush in my herb garden and begin gobbling the blood-red drupes, stones and all.