Friday, May 10, 2013

Dogwood in flower

 Dogwood blossoms are hard for me to photograph. The lowest blooms are usually well over my head, and the sky in the background doesn’t always cooperate either. This week the sky has been especially gray—not the ideal background for a while flower. This morning the sky was a bit more cooperative, and besides if I don’t get a photo of the flower soon, I will miss them this year.


I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of warblers, and I’m starting to think my fear that they will overfly me this year is what is happening . Certainly, I haven’t had anything other than a few yellow-rumped warblers. This morning I stood outside the cabin and listened to the dawn chorus, hoping for the sound of one at least. The chorus was filled with the sweet songs of many wood thrush and ovenbirds, but nothing that sounded warbler-ish to me at all. It feels ungrateful to complain while the wood thrush are filling the woods with their songs.

Wood thrush songs seem to emanate from everywhere and nowhere in the forest. The sound surrounds me, though the birds themselves are often invisible. Sometimes I can place them in this tree or that one, but that usually doesn’t help me find a bird that’s sitting deep in the tree. Occasionally they will sing in the open where I can see them, but that isn’t typical. 



4 comments:

Scott said...

Carolyn: I've got so many Black-throated Green warblers calling in my canopy right now I can't even keep track of them. Sorry...

Pablo said...

I don't have any dogwoods in my forest, even though they are the state flower of Missouri, and I've tried planting them, but some essential fungus is missing from the soil.

As for birds and identifying them, I'm hopeless. Except for the ones that hang around the feeder, I pretty much just call them Little Gray Birds.

Carolyn H said...

Scott: usually black-throated green warblers are as thick as fleas around here. Not this year. At least not yet this year.

Carolyn H said...

Pablo: the photos I see of your forest look drier to me than my forest and much of this area. perhaps dogwood like a wetter woods.