wood thrush

Wednesday September 12, 2018

Dave Bonta September 12, 2018 2

Home! A migrant wood thrush softly calls over the roar of the rain-swollen creek. In the big tulip tree, a squirrel is building a drey.

Dave Bonta May 4, 2018 2

Cloudy and cool. The great-crested flycatchers are back with their dinosaur calls. From down-hollow, the faint carillon of a wood thrush.

Dave Bonta September 22, 2016 1

Clear and cold at sunrise. A migrant thrush calls from the not-yet-ruined temple of the trees. Overhead, the archaic smile of the moon.

Dave Bonta June 19, 2016 1

Another bright sunny morning—meaning the shadows are deep and full of unseen singers: scarlet tanager, cerulean warbler, even a wood thrush.

Dave Bonta May 12, 2016

Overcast enough that the wood thrushes are still singing at mid-day. The cloying scent of cypress spurge wafts over from my weedy herb bed.

Dave Bonta April 30, 2016

Thin fog. Two wood thrushes skulk around the edge of the yard. A crow finds something hiding in the pines and tries to raise an alarm.

Dave Bonta July 25, 2015

Far off through the woods, the bell-like notes of three wood thrushes—young ones mastering the music of their tribe before they disperse.

Dave Bonta June 12, 2015

I can’t decide which I prefer: the thrush’s melancholy bells or a woodpecker’s rattle, the dark forest edge or the meadow full of mist.

Dave Bonta May 9, 2014 1

Just after sunrise, a wood thrush lands in the trees across from the porch and looks quietly all around. Two hours later, he’s singing.

Dave Bonta October 5, 2013

Walnut leaves are scattered all over the porch. What was the wind up to while I slept? In the woods, a migrant thrush expresses mild alarm.