Heavy cloud cover. A flash of red from a male cardinal cutting through the yard. Gray heads of goldenrod almost shine in the gloom.
cardinal
4/6/2020
Two faded contrails in an otherwise clear sky. A cardinal sings his spring song, which bears a very strong resemblance to his winter song.
3/12/2020
Sun through thin clouds. A flash of red as a cardinal emerges from bathing in the stream. Two ravens croak back and forth, high and low.
1/12/2020
A yellow gash appears in the clouds to the east and heals up again. The cardinal attacks his reflection. Military jets howl over, unseen.
12/9/2019
Steady rain. The cardinal makes two sorties against his reflection in the window and retreats to the shelter of the cedar tree.
5/7/2019
The cardinal attacks his reflection then sings in triumph. The Cooper’s hawk skulks out of the woods like a ninja. Today I’m the cardinal.
4/11/2019
The cardinal whose doppelganger lives in the upstairs window taps twice and flies off—just going through the motions. I sneeze at the sun.
3/8/2019
The sun’s slow fadeout. Two male cardinals travel together to the stream and back again—flashes of color in an increasingly monochrome yard.
2/1/2019
Snow fine as fingerprint powder; it’s almost zero. Two cardinals and a jay in the crabapple tree wait their turn to drink from the spring.
12/10/2018
In the red center of a berry-laden barberry bush, a male cardinal turns all about, gorging. When he flies, so much of its red goes with him.
3/25/2018
Cold as a well under a deep blue sky torn by the distant roar of military jets. The morning singers carry on: cardinal, song sparrow, robin.
3/12/2018
Cold and gloomy, but the yard seethes with birds: juncos, cardinals, wren. A hundred yards away, a hawk sits on a limb, bedeviled by crows.
3/5/2018
Another wintry morning, and I’m marveling at the sharpness of the air in my lungs, the sun in my face, the blue sky, the cardinal’s song.
1/26/2018
As the sunlight advances, the frosted yard turns from glitter to glisten. The barn-red cardinal’s inexplicably cheerful two-note tune.