The brassy singers of open spaces take it in turns: robin, cardinal, towhee. But I am ready for shade and the whispery songs of warblers.
towhee
April 1, 2021
Fat snowflakes fall on the daffodils’ down-turned cups, while a towhee chants—according to the time-worn birders’ mnemonic—Drink! Drink!
June 28, 2020
The towhee interrupts his window-tapping to attend to fledglings in the tall grass. Tree sparrows in the garden trill as they mate.
June 18, 2020
Light rain. The towhee who usually taps on the windows appears in the garden with a long yellow caterpillar dangling from his bill.
May 30, 2020
Hummingbirds fight each other; a towhee fights his reflection in the living room window. The sky is as blue and empty as it gets.
May 26, 2020
I move around to the shady side of the house. Different birds here: oriole high in a walnut tree, towhee tapping at the dining room window.
April 15, 2019
Amid the heavy raindrops, the lighter ghosts of just-melted snowflakes. Treetops sway this way and that. The towhee goes on calling.
April 6, 2019
Robin song echoes through the fog. My neighbor drives past on the tractor. In the wake of its rumble, a towhee’s eponymous call.
October 11, 2018
Hard, steady rain—yet somehow certain small, filmy-winged insects still manage to fly. From the woods’ edge, a towhee’s eponymous call.
October 16, 2017
The train’s horn is full of Monday. Migrating towhees compare notes at the edge of the woods. A blue wound closing in the clouds.
April 24, 2017
Overcast and cool. I’m outside for an hour and there’s no point at which something—chipmunk, squirrel, towhee, siren—isn’t signalling alarm.
January 28, 2017
A few, wandering flakes slowly build into a snow squall. From my parents’ back porch, the “towhee” call of a towhee that hasn’t gone south.
June 27, 2016
Overcast. A towhee keeps singing the first two notes of his three-note song. Propped on the railing, my feet appear to anchor a spiderweb.
April 24, 2016
Cold air, warm sun. Two male towhees tweet at each other in the lilac. The old crabapple is coming into bloom, as shockingly pink as ever.