A gloomy morning, except for the wren: the dull mechanical songs of the quarry, the low cloud ceiling, the cold breath of autumn making leaves tremble on their stems.
Off and on rain and the sporadic crashes of falling walnuts. I watch a yellow tulip tree leaf tumbling down, end over end, the air slipping through its four Mickey Mouse fingers.
Overcast and quiet. A few drops of rain patter in the grass and dead bracken. The enthusiasm of a Carolina wren up by the garage seems wholly unwarranted.
Overcast and cool. A pileated woodpecker flies into the dead top of the tallest black locust in the yard, seemingly oblivious to a swirling conflict between a small flock of local jays and two migrant sharp-shinned hawks. A slow inspection of the treetop turns up nothing worth tapping for, and she flies off, leaving the tree to the jays.
An hour after the last raindrops, wet leaves glisten as the sun glimmers through thin clouds. The sound of teeth chiseling through a walnut shell. The stems of bent stiltgrass in the meadow begin to redden.
Sunny and cool at midmorning, with the smell of woodsmoke drifing up from the valley. The bluejay who stumps the bird app is making his one-of-a-kind call — almost a croon. At random moments, black walnuts drop onto the driveway with a thud.
Cold and clear at dawn. At one point a whippoorwill, screech owl and Carolina wren are all calling at the same time. The owl persists for another five minutes, trilling at the woods’ edge. Then a drumroll from a pileated woodpecker, and it is day.
Cool and mostly clear at mid-morning. A gray squirrel continuing to scold after the threat has moved on sounds like a rusty hinge. The drone of a single-prop plane fades in the distance.
After all-night rain, most of the stiltgrass in the meadow has fallen over, and many of the white snakeroot heads are bent low. And even as some leaves on the trees are turning yellow, others have never looked so bright green.
Overcast and cool. Pieces of black walnut husk rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast. I remember the walnut husk maggot fly that landed on my armrest yesterday, its elegant striped wings and strange green eyes.
A cool morning with the sky mostly clear and sound out of the east: the limestone quarry’s reverse-chirping trucks, muffled clanks and booms. A squirrel high in the tree next to the road picks a walnut, sniffs it, and lets it fall with a crash.
Overcast but bright. Neither warm nor cool. A Cooper’s hawk dives at a squirrel on a walnut tree at the woods’ edge, misses, then takes fright when the squirrel turns and charges at it, and lands on a nearby limb to take stock and ruffle its feathers before taking off.
Overcast and cool, with showers of yellow black walnut leaflets in the slightest breeze. A gray squirrel climbs a small tree next to the lilac, presses its snout to each of three walnuts, and climbs back down.
A screech owl trilling in the half-dark sounds thinner and more uncertain than usual—a juvenile, perhaps? When it falls silent, a whippoorwill calls, sounding equally tentative, and soon stops. From the woods’ edge, the soft calls of all-night migrants dropping in to rest and forage.