After a night below freezing, the daffodils sag on their stalks like half-deflated balloons in the bright sun. The stream’s quiet gurgle.
April 2014
4/15/2014
A steady thrum of rain on the porch roof. The big red maple at the corner of the old corral is a cloud of salmon blossoms in the half light.
4/14/2014
I poke my head out at first light. The moon has disappeared, and in its place the first towhee’s shrill and cheerful call. I go back to bed.
4/13/2014
The high-pitched cries of a Cooper’s hawk. I watch him move from tree to tree half-way up the ridge, wings shining in the soft light.
4/12/2014
Clear sky at sunrise, but the woods are still dripping. The sun sets the mist aglow. Trembling drops shift from color to color, prismatic.
4/11/2014
The last few wood frogs still croaking down in the marsh give way to spring peepers, who soon fall silent in turn. Then the patter of rain.
4/10/2014
Warm and bright. A tiny, black salticid spider descends the shady side of a porch column, edges around into the sun and dashes into a crack.
4/9/2014
One goldfinch in the lilac has already molted into his summer plumage: before the daffodils, spicebush or coltsfoot, the very first yellow.
4/8/2014
Half an hour till sunrise. Over the brassy din of the dooryard birds, from off in the fog, the soft, wandering warble of a winter wren.
4/7/2014
Rain begins at mid-morning: a cold drizzle. The sparrows in the lilac stop singing, but vultures still drift back and forth along the ridge.
4/6/2014
A cool, cloudless morning. A raven flies over the house headed south, his loud cronks shattering the Sunday silence. Today will be warm.
4/5/2014
Trees sway and gyrate under a blue-gray sky. In a lull between gusts, a lost leaf flutters down out of the clouds. The phoebe calls.
4/4/2014
After all-night rain, the sound of rushing water in all directions. I can barely hear the birds. A distant, dull clanking from the quarry.
4/3/2014
A pileated woodpecker lands on the dead elm. She drums just below the old flicker den hole, then peers into it, moving her head all about.