Posts Tagged ‘spring’
songs in the grey woods – ovenbird, over and over
This week we had a meeting of our writing group Fictional Friends. We are trying something new – dedicating our whole meeting to one person’s writing. The writer ‘in the spotlight’ talks about writing goals and the problems they encounter. Then they describe their current project, giving a synopsis. They read and the group provides constructive comments. We found this first session helpful for everyone present and we plan another session, with a focus on another writer’s work. I think each member of the group learned something applicable to his or her own writing.
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This session was held at my house. I left the back screen open, to let in some air. More than air comes in – at a meeting last month, the sound of our next door neighbour’s rooster crowing provided a backdrop to some reading about rural themes. At this week’s meeting, an Ovenbird decided to start singing in the woods behind our house. ‘Teacher, teacher, teacher’ he said, over and over. Perhaps he was making a commentary on our particular way of learning.
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The Ovenbird is a large warbler, olive-brown. He reminds me of a thrust because of his streaked white breast. He has an orange crest, a white ring around each eye, a white throat and a dark line below his cheek. My drawing is from a photo by Ann Gardner, used with permission. http://www.anngardnerphotography.com/
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Do you belong to a writing group? What methods does your group use to help one another?
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Copyright 2016 Jane Tims
songs in the grey woods – northern parula
A friend, a knowledgeable wetland biologist, has been helping me learn some new bird songs. Last week, I identified the song of the Northern Parula. This is a bird I have never seen, though I scan those tree tops with the binoculars until my arms ache. I have heard its song so many times and always wondered what it was. The song is a long whirrrrr, flowed by a short, upward flip. Whirrrr -flip. Whirrrr- flip. This morning it was the first song of the morning bird chorus!
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It drives me crazy to hear him sing, be able to find the tree he is perched in, but not see him. My painting is how I think he must look, based on descriptions on the net.
The Parula is a blue-grey bird with a yellow throat, and a yellow and white breast. He has a white crescent above and below his eye and two white wing bars. A bright and beautiful bird! He has an association with a lichen I love, Usnea subfloridana, Old Man’s Beard. He uses the lichen to build his hanging nest.
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Usnea subfloridana on the snow – usually found hanging in our maple, spruce and fir trees
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Copyright 2016 Jane Tims
songs in the grey woods – ovenbird
He can be a bit monotonous. A bit of a scold. He reminds me of a rusty hinge. He says teacher-teacher-teacher, repeating his song through the woodland. He is the Ovenbird.
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His scientific name is Seiurus aurocapilla. Seiurus (which I remember as ‘serious’) is from the Greek meaning ‘tail shake’, a reference to the characteristic upward flip of his tail. The name aurocapilla means golden-haired referring to his crest of orangy feathers. The Ovenbird is olive-brown, with a streaked white breast. He has a white ring around his eye, a white throat and a dark line below his cheek. He looks a bit like a thrush, but is a large warbler.
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His serious nature and his call of ‘teacher, teacher, teacher’ make me think I’ll include a poem about his ways in my project about one room school houses in New Brunswick. This is how my poems usually begin, with a whisper from nature.
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Copyright 2016 Jane Tims
songs in the grey woods – black-throated green
Our grey woods are noisy this week. White-throated sparrows, nuthatches, ovenbirds and chickadees. Loudest of all is a black-throated green warbler. He says, in his raspy voice, at intervals of about ten seconds: zee-zee-zee-zee- whee-zee, also a more musical dee-dee, dee-dee, doo-dee (the doo a note lower than the dee). He perches near the tops of the tamarack and red maple trees.
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I sat on our deck a long while, and finally caught him as he paused in a red maple. He had a bright yellow head and looked back at me over his white wing stripe before he flew away. I also get an occasional glimpse of him as he flies from tree to tree. His best features are his yellow head, the two white stripes on each wing, and his black throat.
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a view of the tamarack trees and spruce where the black-throated green warbler is singing – the red maple is just starting to leaf-out
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
apple orchard after the ice storm
On Saturday, we went for a drive to see the results of last week’s freezing rain storm. Every tree sparkled with its layer of frozen water. When we stopped by the roadside to take some photos, the sound of cracking ice made a continuous stippling noise in the forest.
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I was amazed at the odd miniaturized appearance of the ice-covered apple trees in an orchard not far from our cabin. The trees are normal sized but there is a lack of scale and weirdness of light in the photos that miniaturizes the entire scene. The third photo, including the ploughed side road, looks more normal.
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I think this will be our last winter storm of the season. We still have snow on the ground but next week’s warming should take it all away!
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Copyright 2016 Jane Tims
Who ate the sunflower seeds???
First week of spring! Cold and snowy!
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I woke this morning to find my newly-filled sunflower seed feeders all empty. Three pine siskins and a goldfinch were clinging to the finch seed feeder but the other birds are out of seed. A look at the yard will tell you who was slurping up the sunflower seeds in the night!
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Copyright Jane Tims 2016
spring orchestra – downy woodpecker
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sticky tongue, tail prop, zygodactyl feet
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beneath the key of chained song (chick-a-dee
whistle, robin melodic and whitethroat
mnemonic, wheezy phoebe, junco click) –
grubs mumble, coil in rotting wood
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beneath low woodwind, blazing brass and string –
jagged percussion and drum roll, Downy
Woodpecker excavates sugar maple
stump, black jackhammer
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beak throws wood chips, heaps sawdust and splinters
dapper shudders, black and white, a grey smudge
bright head-bars, a red blur, tap a stammer
steady stutter, busyspeak
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
spring orchestra – fee-bee
Carving of the name ‘Phoebe’ on a beam of the Tantramar #2 Covered Bridge near Sackville, New Brunswick
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Phoebe
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unknown, she nudges
her way into Monday –
carved name in the covered bridge
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Black-capped Chickadee pipes
fee -bee, hey-sweetie
(bored with chick-a-dee-dee-dee)
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and Eastern Phoebe, rasps fee-bee
whee-zy, Phoe-bee
black bed-head, smuggie throat
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unknown, Phoebe nudges
her way into Monday
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
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one of the usual visitors to our feeder … the Black-capped Chickadee
small green world
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As I gradually put away my Christmas decorations, I am a little sad about disassembling the vignettes I created – a group of carolers skating on a mirror pond, a serene stable scene, a lighted Christmas village.
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To see me through the rest of winter I have created another small world in a glass cloche, a moss and lichen garden under glass. I picked the moss before the first December snow and it has done well for a month. The moss leaves are bright and there is new growth on some of the lichen tips. The terrarium even has its own little climate and ‘weather’ – days when the glass is clear and dry, and days when the glass is foggy and you can see a faint mist among the mosses.
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I love the ‘green-ness’ of this miniature world. Green mosses, sheltered by the green leaves of my Lipstick Vine (Aeschynanthus lobbianus) and guarded by my green, four-clawed Chinese dragon. Green candles.
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While the world outside is cold and white, I have this tiny green world to remind me – spring is only weeks away.
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Copyright 2015 Jane Tims
green flame
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In the afternoon, on a sunny day, the light from the stained glass window in our stairwell finds a place on the wall of our living room. For a few moments, blues, reds and greens create a gorgeous splash of colour. Yesterday afternoon, the spotlight settled behind the curtained door to the library. And a green flame shimmered among the folds of fabric, a reminder of the greenery slumbering out in the yard, beneath the snow.
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
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