Two towhees tweet as I drink my tea. Finally they meet at the woods’ edge, tails flared, and one flees. Blue holes appear in the clouds.
towhee
April 3, 2025
Hard rain slackening after sunrise. As the drumming on the roofs subsides, I can hear a torrent of Carolina wren song and towhee calls.
April 1, 2025
Cold, windy, and overcast. The ring of daffodils in my yard offers a bright yellow rebuke to the grayness. Drink your tea! says the towhee. I’m trying.
March 30, 2025
Daffodils are open under a gray-wool sky. A cowbird’s liquid note. Up by the garage, a towhee is calling.
November 17, 2024
A slightly flat full moon in the west at dawn. A towhee calls from the dark edge of the woods. Freight trains labor up the valley. Just before full daylight, a screech owl begins to trill.
October 7, 2024
Breezy and cool at dawn. Migrants trade notes as they explore the forest edge: towhee, phoebe, thrush. A lost passenger jet comes roaring overhead.
September 23, 2024
Drizzle before dawn, settling into steady rain by daybreak. At the woods’ edge, two chirps from a towhee and the soft call of a migrant thrush.
August 25, 2024
A desultory dawn chorus of one Carolina wren and a towhee. I consider baring an arm to stop the mosquitoes from whining in my ear.
April 10, 2024
Rainy and cool. An eastern towhee is urging me—according to the time-honored birders’ mnemonic—to drink my tea, while woodpeckers large and small bang their heads against the trees.
October 10, 2023
Within the moon’s crescent, its dark bulk is aglow—a reminder that Earth is still, somehow, a source of light. A towhee calls twice and goes back to sleep.
September 14, 2023
Half an hour before sunrise, the goldenrod is already aglow. Venus and Jupiter fade into a cloudless sky. Towhees begin to tweet.
August 6, 2023
A mosquito sings her dark need into my ear. Day advances like a slow machine of squeaking towhees and whirring wrens.
July 21, 2023
Fog at first light. The random percussion of rain dripping off the trees slowly joined by bird calls: pewee, towhee, song sparrow, wren…
April 24, 2023
Three degrees below freezing, but no frost. The dawn chorus seems reduced in volume, though the towhees and one tom turkey aren’t holding back.