Cloudy and unseasonably warm at sunrise. My head throbs from watching election returns. A small buck walks by below the house sporting a single spike of antler—a unicorn.

Up on the ridgetop to watch the sunrise, seven distinct layers of red in the smog over State College, itself hidden by another wooded ridge. A jay wakes up and screams like a Hollywood eagle.

With no inversion layer, the early-morning traffic noise keeps its distance, like the worn-down moon cradling its heart of darkness. My rumbling stomach is the loudest thing.

Clear at dawn. A pileated woodpecker rockets silently through the thinning forest canopy, and lands on the side of an oak like the angel of death for carpenter ants, elegant black-and-white wings folding shut.