The bird ID app Merlin kept urging me to participate in Global Big Day on Saturday, as I was walking in the Thickhead Wild Area near Boalsburg, PA. I finally decided to try to write a modern haiku for each bird I heard or saw. I failed, of course, but here are the passable efforts.
black-throated
blue warbling
here here HERE
ovenbird
the silence must be preserved
for a dome of leaves
wheezing pine
a black-and-white warbler’s
elegant stripes
giddy with
some sun-flooded bush
hooded warbler
mossy trail
a black-throated green warbler
dreaming out loud
last year’s leaves
still worth a rummage
eastern towhee
scratching an itch
without a pause in the song
chestnut-sided warbler
twisted limbs
the witchedy call of a common
yellowthroat
mourning dove
the dead oak encircled
by whispering birches
passing
a chickadee’s inspection
doddering birch stump
one monologue
leads to another
red-eyed vireos
tanager
husky-voiced singer
in scarlet
hairy woodpecker
the sun beginning to beat
on my neck
the buzz
of blossoming treetops
cerulean warbler
yellow warbler
the rhododendron’s one
yellow leaf
songs without birds
the brown thrasher’s
vast catalogue
blowdown calling
an American redstart back
from Venezuela
tufted titmouse
the hectoring tone
of my hunger
wood thrush
all the sweetness of time
flown by
Thickhead Wild Area, Rothrock State Forest
May 10, 2025 – Global Big Day