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.

Friday May 04, 2018

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.

Thursday September 22, 2016

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.

Sunday June 19, 2016

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.

Thursday May 12, 2016

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.

Saturday April 30, 2016

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.

Saturday July 25, 2015

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.

September 19, 2017
A monarch butterfly en route to Mexico glides over the house, past the orange leaves on the last living branch of a hollow maple.
September 19, 2016
A new bloom of gnats—I saw them swarming by the back door—and the yard is full of fall warblers, foraging with the chickadees and titmice.
September 19, 2015
Even unseen, the raven crying rawk rawk from high overhead makes the flat white sky more interesting. In the yard, a monarch's regal orange.
September 19, 2014
A faint smell of sewage on the wind. A wren singing from atop the springhouse in the absence of a female supplies his own call-and-response.
September 19, 2013
Goldfinch, nuthatch, catbird, wren. The herb-garden chipmunk, cheeks bulging, pauses on top of the wall to groom its paws.
September 19, 2012
A dozen vultures fresh from their communal roost circle low overhead, wings shining white whenever they tilt toward the sun—angels of death.
September 19, 2011
A meadow vole takes an after-death journey into the forest in the jaws of a cat, who holds her head high for once and does not slink.
September 19, 2010
A succession of anxious or querulous calls—nuthatch, crow, Cooper's hawk, pileated woodpecker—until sunrise reddens the western ridge.
September 19, 2009
Clear and cold. I follow my breath as it drifts over the ridges and valleys of the tin roof sheltering the oil tanks. A patter of acorns.
September 19, 2008
Gold is spreading from the goldenrod up into the trees, here and there: walnut, elm, birch. A jay dives into the lilac: blue from the sky.