nichepoetryandprose

This morning I added a new bird to our spring chorus singers – the winter wren.

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It is the first I have heard of him this year. At 6:45, just after dawn, he began his amazing song. His tweets and runs and burbling sound so joyful and each song lasts about seven seconds, very long for any bird song. He may be a winter wren but to me he is always the ‘scribble bird’.

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To hear the winter wren sing, click here .

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He joins my growing list of morning singers:

• black and white warbler – ‘sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet’
• American robin – ‘cherry up cheery-eee’
• nuthatch – ‘yank, yank, yank, yank’
• phoebe – nasal ‘fee-bee’
• snipe – winnowing
• our neighbour’s rooster

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I often include elements of the morning bird chorus in my poetry.  This poem, written about the Salmon River Covered Bridge, is in my poetry book in the shelter of the covered bridge (Chapel Street Editions, 2017). To obtain a copy of the book, go to Chapel Street Editions or contact me through the comments.

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The Salmon River Bridge, near Sussex, Kings County, was built across the Kennebecasis River in 1908. Today it is used as a rest area. In the absence of traffic, wild life occupies the bridge. Virginia creeper covers one corner of the roof and rose bushes crowd the edges of the road.

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scribble

Salmon Bridge

Kennebecasis #7.5

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The robin, chary. Her beak drips

with wet meadow grass and chickweed.

She clucks, longs to add another strand

to her nest in the rafters,

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woven with the trill of a scribble bird,

a winter wren delirious. And downy

woodpeckers, wing-flare and scrabble,

flirt in the willows, weeping.

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A warbler (yellow blur-bird)

and a red-wing, toweeeee.

Pink roses, meadowsweet

chip, chip, chip, so-wary-we

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and beneath the bridge

in soft mud beside pulled grass

the bleary track of a black bear

claws and pads

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Published, in the shelter of the covered bridge, Chapel Street Editions, 2017

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All my best,

Jane