Just inside the woods, the soft clucks of a hen turkey trailed by a single chick. A thrush song sounds like a threnody—slow, sad notes.
wood thrush
June 13, 2010
The air is close, but it gets even closer: first a shower, then a torrent. The wood thrush falls silent. The doe flicks water from her ears.
June 1, 2010
The tulip tree’s enormous flowers are opening, yellow and orange petals dripping nectar, accompanied by the wood thrush’s choir of one.
May 25, 2010
Wood thrushes dart back and forth; three squirrel species briefly converge. My yard is less comprehensible to me than a street in Bangkok.
May 3, 2010
Mid-morning, through the screen door, faint bell-like notes. I put the phone down and rush out into the rain. The wood thrush is back.
September 23, 2009
At first light, the soft wickering of migrant wood thrushes. A deer snorts three times, and suddenly I’m seeing a bear in every shadow.
August 28, 2009
Another overcast morning, with wind and the sound of trucks out of the east. Two thrushes and a gnatcatcher move silently through the lilac.
July 23, 2009
Come hummingbird and bring some glitter to this damp gray morning, buzz around the bergamot, pizzazz at the beebalm’s one bedraggled bloom.
July 19, 2009
July 10, 2009
June 29, 2009
May 30, 2009
May 1, 2009
Warm rain. The wood thrushes have returned to sing at the edge of the woods for another year. It’s almost possible to believe in redemption.