I went out with the dogs to Percy Warner Park today expecting I might hear a Parula warbler, for it is usually the first warbler I see, or hear. Instead I heard the Black-throated Green Warbler, an old companion of my youth in rural New Hampshire.
I hear its wheezy whistle, and I am fifty years back in time, walking with my brother, carrying our fishing poles down to the hemlock shaded pools of the Little Sugar River. The State stocked that river with hatchery Rainbow Trout, but the nobler Brook Trout hid downstream in secret places-
I hear this warbler, and I am on the forest edge of an old pasture. A ruffed grouse drums on a log in the distance and two pints of wild strawberries are waiting for me to pick them.
I hear this warbler , and am sad when I think of the brevity of the New England summer, and how the Veery and the Hermit thrush sing nightingale songs that are never heard in Nashville. Yet this small warbler sings for us here,and takes some of us pleasantly to the past-
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1 comment:
A friend asked me if I liked birds outside of the raptors and I said I get giddy over a tiny warbler. It will be May before they approach, but maybe sooner with this warm winter.I started birding in 1969.Do you watch the Cornell site?
I found that strange little sculpture outside of a Methodist Church and wondered if family had donated it to the church garden.
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