Steady rain; the early-morning light lasts for hours. A large, grayish blob halfway up a tree turns out to be only a caterpillar tent.
September 2010
9/29/2010
The first holes have appeared in the forest wall, blue sky above the ridgeline leaking through. A dozen silent jays skim the treetops.
9/28/2010
How does the poison ivy know to turn the same salmon as the red maple it has infiltrated? A phoebe chases a kinglet from the roadside weeds.
9/27/2010
The downpour eases, and the cattail leaves stop dancing. A burst of bird calls from within the dogwood thicket: waxwings, towhees.
9/26/2010
Three migrant catbirds land in the spicebush beside my front door, drawn by the berries’ stop-sign red. Between each berry, a scolding mew.
9/25/2010
Past 6:00, and it’s still warm and cloudy. But the moon soon breaks through into good weather. As its glow dims, the breeze turns cool.
9/24/2010
A harvestman stilting across the porch stops to poke each fallen walnut leaf. Up in the woods, the sudden squirrel rattle that means Hawk.
9/23/2010
Thick fog at daybreak, as if the bright moon of 2am had spread a kind of mildew over the mountain. Train whistle. A nuthatch’s nasal call.
9/22/2010
Dawn breeze. The whine of tires from the highway over the ridge is punctuated by the heavy thwacks of falling walnuts.
9/21/2010
I finally realize what sage leaves remind me of, rough with papillae, moist with dew: but for the gray-green color, they could be tongues.
9/20/2010
Sitting in the garden while the porch’s new coat of paint dries, I notice the peony leaves too have turned red. A waxwing’s glossy calls.
9/19/2010
A succession of anxious or querulous calls—nuthatch, crow, Cooper’s hawk, pileated woodpecker—until sunrise reddens the western ridge.
9/18/2010
The valleys must be brimming over with fog. Clouds rise behind both ridges, but it’s blue overhead: a white-bread sandwich filled with sky.
9/17/2010
Due to the drought, the goldenrod display is subdued this year—but birch are turning three weeks early. September will have its yellow.