Clear and cool at sunrise. In the holiday-morning silence, a worm-eating warbler’s dry rattle in the woods accompanies the catbird singing in the yard and field sparrows in the meadow. A crow. The rumble of a jet.
worm-eating warbler
Treetops rusty with sun. Worm-eating warbler—or is it a chipping sparrow? That dry rattle. A pair of mating craneflies goes unsteadily past.
A worm-eating warbler ventures out to the woods’ edge, picking caterpillars from the leaves of a birch like an oxpecker grooming a buffalo.
The worm-eating warbler has taken his rattle deep into the forest. The chipping sparrow’s is louder than ever, echoing off the woods’ edge.
Lichens are aglow after a night of rain, the tulip tree’s trunk painted the same pale green as its leaves. New warbler songs off in the fog.
That buzz from just inside the woods: chipping sparrow or worm-eating warbler? The four-fingered tulip tree leaves flip back and forth.