5:11 a.m. 49 degrees, Wind S, 0 mph, a very weak planetary exhale. Sky: lackluster and blue-gray; clouds, a shapeless skin of moisture strung from east to west. Nothing special. Intermittent streams move quietly. Permanent streams still polish rocks. The vertical fluff of coltsfoot seed heads radiates around the seeds petal-like, which makes the flowers superficially appear to be dwarf ox-eye daisies. White ash in bud; every other tree species in leaf.
Warblers: nine species. Vireos: two species. Flycatchers: two species. Thrushes: two species. Plus, all the usual suspects. A flock of parulas arrived last night and sing from crowns of white pine; toneless buzzes rising with the sun. Watching them cramps my neck. Two black-throated green warblers perch close in adjoining hemlocks. Sing, their phrases rising, falling, and rising again. Birds of cool, shady woods, of damp ravines, black-throated greens are as much a part of rhododendron and Fraser hemlock in the Great Smokey Mountains as they are of gullies and eastern hemlock in the Greens. Their enthusiasm and unifying devotion define the place, as much as the trees themselves. When he sings his little heart out, hemlocks come to life. In fact, black-throated greens are to hemlock woods what lox is to bagels, an inseparable combination . . . each made infinitely better by the presence of the other.
Flyover loon, silent. Bittern calling. A female sapsucker bleeds a sugar maple, the same arrhythmic tapping, though much quieter than her mate's territorial proclamations. Back to me, she imbibes sap; her grayish-white stippling blending into the maple bark. Up the tree, she moves. Begins again. No warblers or hummingbirds visit the holes today.
On the south end of the pond, a pair of house wrens chase each other around. Beyond Type-A personalities, house wrens could be clinically diagnosed with ADHD; everything about them is perpetual, both physically and acoustically. Male sings a disjointed mix of warbles, trills, hisses, bubbly notes that, rising and falling, sounds much too loud for such a small bird. Never a dull moment in the wonderful world of house wrens; they're the perfect antidotes for depression, my concentration refocused in a nanosecond. Wrens, devilishly chaotic, demand attention, command attention. I forgive them for every nest they’ve trashed, for every hole they’ve poked in a bluebird egg, both minor infractions in the Big Picture of interspecies coexistence. Feeling blue or unfocused, COVID-19 got you down . . . look for a house wren.