Neither as cold nor as clear as recent mornings, with the sun thinly veiled by atmospheric murk. The golden-leaved tulip tree in the yard looks duller now than it did in the full moonlight at 4:00 a.m.
With most of the forest understorey bare, one can see so much more through the trees: a full moon setting in the west, a flock of geese, the white tail of a deer retreating like a ghost into the dark mountain laurel bushes.
Clear and cold. A few minutes before sunrise, with crows already noising about, a pair of screech owls start duetting up on the ridge, fierce high tremolos descending into tender trills.
Just enough light to see the pointer on my dial thermometer: 37°F. The first white-throated sparrows begin whistling from the edges of the meadow, thin high notes. Sky begins to appear between the ridgetop trees.
Clear and still. Noise from the valley dies down as the sun climbs the sky and destroys the inversion layer. I notice every crack between the boards on the porch floor is jammed with tulip tree samaras.
“October’s bright blue weather” continues. As it warms up, I take great, greedy breaths of the autumn air, laden with geosmin and other earthy compounds associated with fermentation and decay. A mid-morning blast from the limestone quarry two miles away shakes the house.
Sun strikes the porch roof and it begins to drip, even as two patches of frost linger in the yard. A blue jay in the crown of a large scarlet oak manages to convince the bird app that it’s a hawk.
With my hearing back after a day of earwax removal, I listen to white-throated sparrows singing in two different keys, the sun’s silent wheel progressing alone on its wide blue road.
Cold and clear with heavy frost. A small hawk hurtles over the house as crows call in the distance. The western ridge turns brick-red with sunrise.
Clear and still, the yard silvery with frost. Each morning the woods are more open, the patches of sky more numerous. The sun-flooded forest of winter doesn’t seem so far away now.
Overcast and cold. A white-throated sparrow sings in the wind. Kinglets forage, fluttering and wheezing, through the golden crown of a black birch.
Yellow leaves falling in the fog. A chipmunk runs onto the porch, sees me and stops short, with a walnut larger than its head between its teeth.
The rising sun appears through new holes in the forest understory just after it tops the ridge. Crows and jays are in an uproar over a young peregrine falcon, who hangs around for a couple of hours, periodically giving chase to its most obnoxious persecutors until they all find better things to do elsewhere.
Warm and breezy at sunrise. One katydid is still calling, as if reluctant to see the end of what could be the katydids’ last big party night of the year. Two yellow walnut leaves land on my laptop.