Birds #6

"And the sky opens up like candy / And the wind don't know my name / And the warmth comes back even though you thought it would not." --Lambchop

Our neighbor up the road reports bobolinks in his hayfield and invites us to walk in it whenever. I'm sitting in front of our open door, hearing the black-throated green warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, chickadees, ovenbird, and our three-legged cat, Potato, crying to be let outside. There's no real worry of him killing any songbirds, though. Plus, we keep him on a leash. He reminds me that the gray catbird is back.

There are probably other birds passing through or here to breed whose songs are subtle that I can't recognize. At a local plant nursery I saw a rose-breasted grosbeak, and every time I hear a robin sing at our house I scan the trees and listen harder, thinking I might be mistaking a grosbeak or even a scarlet tanager.

Supremely active right around are yard, besides the chickadees et al, are the phoebe and Carolina wren. But if I had to pick a single species to name the little hollow where we live, it'd be the ruffed grouse. We have as many as three by my count, and one always seems to be scratching through the leaf litter just beyond the yard's edge.