After an orange sunrise, the morning turns overcast and still. Two pileated woodpeckers fly over, one after the other—slow silent missiles.
October 2008
10/16/2008
I can smell the rain coming two hours away. When it finally arrives, mixed in with the falling leaves, two spring peepers begin to call.
10/15/2008
A winter wren’s wandering burble from above the dry creek. A visitor brings out his old-time banjo and tunes it with an electronic tuner.
10/14/2008
Sun in the treetops. A bluejay lands on a bare branch and does a good Cooper’s hawk impression: eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh. Such an April sound!
10/13/2008
When the wind blows from the west, I can hear people talking at the new house site. When it blows from the east, the trees creak and groan.
10/12/2008
BAM. BAM. BAM. The red crest of a pileated woodpecker flashes into view from the dead side of a maple, sunrise orange on the hill behind.
10/11/2008
The yard’s alive with birds: sparrows, jays, robins. In the yellowing wall of foliage at the woods’ edge, I see the first chinks of sky.
10/10/2008
Before light, a pair of spring peepers calling down by the boggy corner of the field—ready to spring again, if only it weren’t time to fall.
10/9/2008
A squirrel with a walnut in its mouth trots across the porch, right under my chair. Five minutes later, another follows suit. What the hell?
10/8/2008
Clouds at dawn change from red to orange to pale yellow, like black gum trees in reverse. A towhee lands in the lilac—a splash of rose.
10/7/2008
33°F at dawn. The quarry is loud in the east, and it’s hard to shake the impression that I’m listening to the dull machinery of the sun.
10/6/2008
A least flycatcher materializes in the cherry tree, finds three invisible morsels on as many leaves, issues a crisp che-bek! and flies off.
10/5/2008
Through the darkness and fog, loud thuds from the black walnut trees that encircle the houses, a slow carpet bombing that goes on for weeks.
10/4/2008
First light, and a great-horned owl is calling down in the hollow, the first three notes of each call drowned out by this rabble of a rain.