Mounds of white snakeroot in the yard glow dimly in the light of a half moon. Orion gets one leg over the ridge before he starts to fade, and the soft calls of migrant thrushes fill the trees.
wood thrush
A crescent moon above the ridge at dawn is lost in fog by sunrise. A hummingbird bothers the bergamot, and a wood thrush is singing as lustily as if it were still June.
Overcast and damp. A hummingbird visits the jewelweed growing in the drip line from the roof, which still drips from a shower at dawn. A wood thrush sings.
Rain at dawn tapering off into another patter alongside the red-eyed vireo’s. Wood thrushes sing back and forth. From deep in the lilac, a house finch lets loose.
Sunrise hidden by fog, but already there’s a background buzz of periodical cicadas. A cerulean warbler sings at the woods’ edge, as usual, long after the wood thrush has lapsed into silence.
Overcast and cool. As the wood thrush fades in the distance, the brown thrasher parodies his song. Waxwings whistle in the treetops. The sun almost comes out.
A clearing wind. The wood thrush comes into the yard to sing as blue sky appears. The aspen I planted last year is already big enough to mime applause.
A wood thrush is singing at the edge of the woods at sunrise—that old sweet song. Behind him, the tall hawthorn has just come into bloom.
Breezy and cool at dawn. Migrants trade notes as they explore the forest edge: towhee, phoebe, thrush. A lost passenger jet comes roaring overhead.
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.
A cold and cloudy dawn. The thump and clatter of hooves, deer crashing through the underbrush—hounded not by a predator but the first stirrings of rut. A migrant thrush’s soft call.
A crow gurgling in dispute to the east, a jake-breaking truck to the west… the wood thrush with his pure, bell-like notes gets no respect.
Low clouds trailing drizzle settle into the trees, where a wood thrush and a wood pewee are calling. From the wet meadow, an indigo bunting’s bone-dry song.
Dawn: a blurry moon just above the trees losing its glow. The wood thrush’s ethereal song gives way to a red-eyed vireo sounding like a wind-up bird, going at twice normal speed.