Birding

Shadows flit to a tree’s backside,
flitting yellow to a branch, yellows flit
across the path. What was that?
A long series of high twinkling trills

from the dark corners of underbrush.
Something is soaring, just over the ridge.
On the trunk it’s dark, black with white
marks, red on the head, white line

on its face, like a woodpecker,
get out the book.
In the willows a liquid chirp,
like drips from a water spout.

Something moving in the grass,
that kraaa sounds like a tern,
Caspian Tern,
something yellow in the cattails,

something calling harsh, like a corvid,
something, what was that?
On the water something just went down,
big enough for a loon,

toward the pilings.
What was that? Did you hear that?
I think it was low.
Cinnamon Teal in the weeds, left of the Heron,

Waxwing in the tree, two of them, and a Goldfinch.
Left of the path, a flycatcher hawking for insects,
swallow wheeling to the right,
vest on the flycatcher,

rolling and rising flutelike notes,
yellows flit across the path,

what was that?