A great-crested flycatcher responds to a red-bellied woodpecker’s trill. A squirrel missing half its tail fixes me with a hostile stare.
2017
4/30/2017
Overcast and cool. Two male catbirds are calling from the old lilacs in adjacent yards. The world is somehow still as it should be.
4/29/2017
Breezy and warm. A chipmunk scrambles through the blossoming barberry bush next to the stream, releasing waves of its sperm-like odor.
4/28/2017
The bud-burst woods is a backlit canvas of pointillist green. A pileated woodpecker hops down a log, her scarlet crest flashing as she taps.
4/27/2017
Birdsong, rustling in the leaf duff, a distant plane: soundtrack to a movie starring the landscape where the only real story is the weather.
4/26/2017
Three clumps of pale mushrooms have appeared in the yard, one bearing an old leaf aloft like an extra parasol. Waves of lilac scent.
4/25/2017
The old cherry stump beside the porch has once again attracted a pair of nest-minded chickadees. They pop in and out of its many holes.
4/24/2017
Overcast and cool. I’m outside for an hour and there’s no point at which something—chipmunk, squirrel, towhee, siren—isn’t signalling alarm.
4/23/2017
I sit with my feet propped on the top railing as usual. A chickadee with a beak full of grass lands on my boots and hops from toe to toe.
4/22/2017
The black birch catkins are even longer and yellower than yesterday, shining in the rain. The shadbush have traded blossoms for pale leaves.
4/21/2017
A red-tailed hawk flies just inside the woods’ edge, past the birches with their catkins and the rambling old lilac just coming into bloom.
4/20/2017
The rhyming couplets of a brown thrasher. A blue-headed vireo’s dreamy soliloquy. When the sun comes out, raindrops glisten on every twig.
4/19/2017
Something sets off the neighbor’s rooster, and a few moments later a raven flies past the porch, croaking like a duck with laryngitis.
4/18/2017
The tulip tree’s leaves have burst their buds—a pale green cloud. A gnatcatcher in the shadbush darts and hovers like a slow hummingbird.