Common Birds VI - Eastern Phoebe

The sunlight is strong, even through the high, thin clouds, and the present chill is the more lovely for the promised warmth. Cardinals sing in the trees above the retaining wall. I greet a human coworker who’s on his way in. Chickadees call and sing. The stream is still with no sign of the heron. I hope I’ll see him again. Jays, cardinals, and red-winged blackbirds resound. 

At the head of the trail past the pond to the river, before I am even in the trees, I hear an undeniable sound of spring. An eastern phoebe sings high in the canopy, joyfully singing its name over and over, Phee-bee Phee-bee, rasping the bee into a trill. I love when birds are named after their call. Phoebes are fairly small with a brown back and head and a white breast. I can clearly hear it along the river. Phoebe are a type of flycatcher so they like to sit in branches that overhang rivers and ponds and dash out to snatch insects on the wing. Even though I hear the call, I can’t make it out until I’m too close and flush the phoebe across the pond. Ice covers less of the surface than yesterday. Chickadees forage along branches so close to my head that I hear their sharp feet on the bark. A Carolina wren sings, its volume totally disproportionate to its tiny frame. A happy nuthatch sings from over the pond. Then I hear a wheezy, honking approach as two ducks flap in off the river, over the footbridge, around a bend, and land in the stream. They had white breasts and dark wings so I think they’re common mergansers but I’m not sure. 

The river is perfectly calm. I spot the reflection of a seagull in the water before I see it soaring in the air. I have to laugh at myself, here in the life-filled woods. Patience. Watch patiently and the signs of Spring will come. All I need to do is give them my attention.