The leaves on one branch of the big maple have turned yellow. The shrill cries of the resident crows driving an invader off the mountain.
Year: 2016
A blue jay skulks through the trees at the woods’ edge but still a nuthatch spots him, and within seconds a mob of small birds assembles.
Sleep deprivation is suddenly making me very bored with the monotony of green. In my last dream before waking, I was wading through snow.
Overcast and cool. Below the porch, a single orange jewelweed flower and a traveling shiver in the grass where a vole is foraging.
A burst of activity at the top of one of the tall locusts: chickadees scold, a phoebe catches gnats, and other birds sit shining in the sun.
Another bright sunny morning—meaning the shadows are deep and full of unseen singers: scarlet tanager, cerulean warbler, even a wood thrush.
Strands of caterpillar silk float on the breeze, appearing and disappearing as they pass through sunbeams. Ravens’ falsetto alarm calls.
The crash of a falling limb or tree, muffled by moss and damp leaf duff. The humidity’s lifting. A white admiral butterfly lands on my hand.
Overcast and humid. A brown leafhopper appears on my arm, and I nudge it with my finger to watch its improbable rocket-launch of a leap.
Noise from the quarry—a grinding drone that runs under everything: oriole song, woodpecker drumming, a hummingbird’s Geiger-counter clicks.
A cricket in the wall chirps more quickly now that the sun is on it. I sneeze and he falls silent. A great spangled fritillary careens past.
Gray things: a squirrel and a titmouse sharing a gray limb. A catbird in the road swallowing gray stones. Large parts of the sky.
A filmy-winged fly back-lit by the sun yo-yos up and down in the middle of the yard, despite the stiff breeze. Overhead, a vulture circling.
Everything moves in the wind but the broken dog statue, the dead rosebush, and the five-fingered cherry stump raised as if in surrender.