The leaves of the tall tulip tree at the wood’s edge are now as big as babies’ ears. A squirrel cries plaintively from its crown.
Tag Archives: tulip tree
Sunday April 28, 2013
I look up from my laptop just as a Cooper’s hawk launches from the tulip poplar, flashing through the treetops toward its nest of sticks.
Wednesday January 30, 2013
Dull yellow stripes in the fog: the rising sun slipping between ridge-top trees; thin tulip poplar branches chewed bare by a porcupine.
Wednesday January 09, 2013
Traffic noise from over the hill is deafening—the icy snowpack has become a sounding board. In the tulip tree, four slow, amorous squirrels.
Tuesday November 13, 2012
The big tulip tree at the woods’ edge is releasing its seeds, spinning blades backlit by the sun. The cedar by the door trembles with birds.
Wednesday November 07, 2012
A smudge of a sun sits in the crown of the tall tulip poplar like a grotesque fruit. Bluebird and Carolina wren song: a joyous soundtrack.
Friday August 24, 2012
A murky sunrise. Gnatcatchers high in the tulip tree dart and hover, tiny silhouettes against a cross-hatch of stratus clouds.
Friday August 10, 2012
A shimmer of rain. One of the lower branches on the big tulip tree has been stripped of bark, but its leaves haven’t gotten the news.
Sunday July 15, 2012
Ten percent of the tulip tree’s leaves have turned yellow in response to the drought. Goldfinches pass through like a yellow wind.
Saturday May 26, 2012
A slight breeze brings a shower of petals from the tulip tree, while a squirrel at the top of the black walnut makes it rain catkins.
Tuesday May 22, 2012
Drizzle. Just as I get the binoculars out, the cedar waxwings all take off whistling from the tulip tree and its outrageous yellow blooms.
Wednesday April 25, 2012
Sun strikes the top of the tulip tree—half-grown leaves vibrating in the wind. In the road, the severed hindquarters of a rabbit.
Friday April 06, 2012
Clear and cold at sunrise. A nuthatch on the dark side of the tall tulip poplar reverses course and ascends into the sunlit crown.
Tuesday July 05, 2011
A cuckoo climbs the trunk of the tulip tree, pausing every few inches to search for prey. The dump truck goes by with a rattle and clang.
Friday July 01, 2011
A convocation of robins in the tulip tree at the edge of the woods, like pot-bellied businessmen with their self-important tut-tut-tuts.
Sunday June 12, 2011
Wood thrush, cerulean warbler, red-eyed vireo, Baltimore oriole—song by song I tick them off as yellow petals fall from the tulip tree.