A crow gurgling in dispute to the east, a jake-breaking truck to the west… the wood thrush with his pure, bell-like notes gets no respect.
wood thrush
6/6/2024
Low clouds trailing drizzle settle into the trees, where a wood thrush and a wood pewee are calling. From the wet meadow, an indigo bunting’s bone-dry song.
5/27/2024
Dawn: a blurry moon just above the trees losing its glow. The wood thrush’s ethereal song gives way to a red-eyed vireo sounding like a wind-up bird, going at twice normal speed.
5/12/2024
Heavily overcast and cold. A redstart is calling from above the springhouse—a buoyant buzz—while a distant wood thrush makes me revisit my dreams.
4/19/2024
A heavy white sky giving few hints of sunrise. In the distance, the faint bells of a wood thrush. A field sparrow’s accelerating rush toward silence.
9/7/2023
Just at the point where the half-moon loses its share of the shadows, a migrant thrush calls from the woods’ edge: a few soft notes, then silence. The sky turns pink.
8/27/2023
Crystal-clear and still. At first light, the soft calls of wood thrushes, no doubt tired and hungry after their all-night flights. Pale crowds of snakeroot seem to glow.
8/14/2023
At ten minutes till sunrise, the first hummingbird buzzes in to the orange touch-me-nots. A wood thrush calls from the woods’ edge, but doesn’t sing.
7/30/2023
Clear and cool. A migrant wood thrush calls softly at first light. It’s very still. Then the wrens wake up.
7/27/2023
A wood thrush is singing in the distance. I shoo away the mosquito singing in my ear to listen.
7/12/2023
Cool enough to seem autumnal, but for the wood thrush and hooded warbler calling from the woods’ edge and the hummingbirds buzzing in the bergamot.
6/24/2023
Foggy at dawn for the wood thrush’s solo. The wild garlics are beginning to raise their egret heads.
6/5/2023
Cool with thin clouds. Two wood thrushes fly into the woods, dead grass trailing from the leader’s beak. A chipmunk runs under my chair.
5/28/2023
Filmy-winged insects drift through rays of sun. A wood thrush comes out into the meadow, hopping like a robin along the edge of the drive.