February 8: Rubies

Sunlit sumac berries—

precious as rubies

to winter robins.

April 20: Birdsong

Noticing this morning

as if for the first time

songs of robins.

Posted with Blogsy

February 15: Exposed

Surprised by a flock of robins
flushing from mud
exposed by the snowplow.

February 12: Storm Warning

Swarms of robins

storming the crabapple tree

ahead of the blizzard.

Posted with Blogsy

January 26: Winterberry

First I noticed

the bright winterberry bush,

then the feeding robin.

Posted with Blogsy

November 7: At the community garden

Day before election.
Watching robins eat berries
in full sunlight.

July 28: Insomnia

A sort of relief

by the time the first bird sings,

something else awake.

Posted with Blogsy

April 23: Whistling

I thought he was whistling

as he walked up the walk

but it was a robin.

Posted with Blogsy

April 8: Parameters

Our physical world, and our psyches, still so bounded by the snow that remains on the ground... and that's supposed to fall tonight.

 

Patch of exposed lawn--

robins explore every inch

within the snow banks.

Posted with Blogsy

April 7: Opening Day

From yesterday, of course:

 

Robins crowd every field.

Red Sox on the radio--

Opening Day.

Posted with Blogsy

May 24: Day's end

Lace curtain blowing.

Robins compete with

someone practicing French horn.

Posted with Blogsy

May 16: On island

Robin's song, cries of gulls,

cold wind and crashing waves--

island twilight.

Posted with Blogsy

April 20: Waiting for woodcocks at Lily Pond

At dusk, hoping to catch the woodcock aerial mating display. We hear turkeys gobbling, geese and ducks, peepers, robins, blackbirds, and cardinals, and catch a glimpse of an eagle chasing an osprey, but no woodcocks on this chilly night.

 

All at once, frogs switch on,

and one by one

Mars, Jupiter, stars appear.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

April 10: Ragged robin

Tousled, missing feathers--
what has this robin been through
to get to my lawn?

January 30: Robins

Winter's come to this:

flock of robins foraging

for last summer's fruits.

June 19: Office music

Turn off Pandora.
A robin shares his music
all afternoon.

May 24: Continuing rain

A curtain of water makes more vivid the green tapestry of the spring trees. Clouds and mist soften the contours of the landscape, create a background of grey and white against which the trees shine even more brightly. A stand of beech trees, waving chartreuse leaves larger than hands, is almost psychedelic in the fog. Birds are hard to spot in this weather--who has the patience to stand long in the rain, vision obscured by water dripping on binoculars?--but still they sing. Dry inside, I listen to hear them over the rain.

Rain drips off the roof,
its rhythm punctuating
robin's late day song.

May 6: Afternoon song

Soothing, somehow--
breeze through the screen,
robin's rollicking, sunlit song.

April 12: A little spring snow

It happens every year, and we always express shock; you'd think we didn't know better. It always snows at least once in April. Even after the crocus have bloomed, peepers chorus among the cattails, and robins chortle in our back yards again, even after teenagers have been running around town in shorts for a week and someone has been considering swimming in the lake two days after official Ice Out, even after all that full-on spring-y stuff... the potential for snowfall has not diminished. And sure enough, today: ice pellets interspersed with rain and big wet flakes.

Full-blown flurries
while we watch the Masters,
envy its azaleas, lush greens.

February 20: Birthday Robins

Some years on my birthday I've tried to see the number of species that equal my age. The older I get, the less easy it has been to approach this goal--especially given that my birthday falls during a time of year when it's not easy to find 20 species, let alone a number in the high 40s. Today I didn't even try.

But I did experience a cool bird moment. My friend Brian and I hiked up Beech Hill in Rockport and spent the entire walk virtually surrounded by robins. We first noticed a big cluster of them--we counted close to 50--feeding in a patch of sumacs. Then when we got to the stone hut at the summit, we observed them in the field below us which the wind had swept clear of snow, carrying on that "walking and listening" thing that they do in our yards in the spring and summer. Granted some patches of ground were soft and had clearly thawed, but there couldn't have been much in the way of worms to be found.

As we walked back down the hill, we were in a sense following the flock as they flew around us to a lower, cleared field, clucking and making soft trilling sounds. We noticed a tight cluster of about a dozen huddled together under a trailhead kiosk, kicking at piles of dead leaves. I'm sure they were getting lucky finding caterpillars and grubs that seek winter shelter among the leaf litter. As we approached this kinetic flock, it circled around and flew back up the hill to renew its progression through the fields and wooded edges.

American Robin perched on remnants of the historic stone gate at Beech Hill, Rockport.  Photo by Brian Willson.

Winter robins' breasts so red
in the barren fields.
I think of my heart.