Dawn comes with an inversion layer, traffic noise half-smothering the scattered notes of thrushes fresh from their night flights.
wood thrush
Wednesday September 07, 2022
Half an hour before sunrise, the first migrant wood thrush arrives at the woods’ edge, calling softly. A sneeze gathers in my sinuses.
Friday August 05, 2022
Rain and fog. A wood thrush sings three times and falls silent. A mourning dove goes on and on.
Saturday July 30, 2022
Cool and crystal-clear. A wood thrush sings as if it’s still nesting season. The western ridge turns red.
Thursday June 30, 2022
Another perfect morning. A wood thrush is singing next to the springhouse. The surrealism of it all when distilled into memory come December.
Monday June 27, 2022
Everything drips. A wood thrush chases a rival out of the woods and pauses in a spicebush for a look around.
Saturday May 14, 2022
The rain stops and the thrush singing at the woods’ edge is joined by warblers, flycatchers, pewee, thrasher, a hummingbird’s mad courtship flight…
Friday May 13, 2022
Cloudy with a 100% chance of warblers. A wood thrush gets a drink from the stream and resumes singing. The smell of lilacs.
Monday September 20, 2021
Spring peeper just after moonset. Then whippoorwill. Wood thrush. Carolina wren. Phoebe. A pileated woodpecker cackles and it’s day.
Saturday July 24, 2021
Mid-morning, and a wood thrush lands in the walnut tree next to the driveway to sing a few bars. A net-winged beetle flies past.
Saturday June 12, 2021
Wet, but at least it’s not raining. Wood thrush, vireo and tanager songs mingle at the woods’ edge. The wingbeats of a catbird.
Friday May 21, 2021
Cool morning. The melancholy sweetness of a wood thrush song. At the woods’ edge, the small black cherry has gone to bloom.
Wednesday May 05, 2021
Agog at the intense green of a deciduous forest at leaf-out in the rain. The soundtrack: wood thrush, red-eyed vireo, least flycatcher.
Saturday June 27, 2020
Overcast and cool. The wood thrushes continue to call well past mid-morning. Beebalms are beginning to flaunt their spiky, scarlet coiffures.