Loose Leaf Notes

Why does the Carolina wren announce its presence so loudly before ducking into the birdhouse to sit on its nest?  Is it meant as a threat?  More likely, it has alerted the neighborhood cats and black snakes and a birdwatcher on a lawn chair with her eyes closed like me.

I was in the middle of a fantasy of being on an island by the sea, trying to decide if I was hot enough to walk the beach or jump in.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to get up and get my camera from inside the house after working all morning to the point of feeling like Cinderella, but the wren was a call to action, and I found more to photograph than birds.

Meanwhile, Joe was being serenaded by the first wood thrush of the season as he planted the last row of corn.  I stopped in my tracks to listen to its crystal clear song that comes from the woods and seems to herald the coming of summer.  Back in my chair, I could still hear it sing as I soaked up the sun, thought about Anderson’s Nightingale, the Rumpelstiltskin gold of growing corn and waited for the yellow finch to come.

~ Listen to the wren as it leaves its nest HERE.  Hear the wood thrush HERE.