Overcast and cool. Two male catbirds are calling from the old lilacs in adjacent yards. The world is somehow still as it should be.
April 2017
April 29, 2017
Breezy and warm. A chipmunk scrambles through the blossoming barberry bush next to the stream, releasing waves of its sperm-like odor.
April 28, 2017
The bud-burst woods is a backlit canvas of pointillist green. A pileated woodpecker hops down a log, her scarlet crest flashing as she taps.
April 27, 2017
Birdsong, rustling in the leaf duff, a distant plane: soundtrack to a movie starring the landscape where the only real story is the weather.
April 26, 2017
Three clumps of pale mushrooms have appeared in the yard, one bearing an old leaf aloft like an extra parasol. Waves of lilac scent.
April 25, 2017
The old cherry stump beside the porch has once again attracted a pair of nest-minded chickadees. They pop in and out of its many holes.
April 24, 2017
Overcast and cool. I’m outside for an hour and there’s no point at which something—chipmunk, squirrel, towhee, siren—isn’t signalling alarm.
April 23, 2017
I sit with my feet propped on the top railing as usual. A chickadee with a beak full of grass lands on my boots and hops from toe to toe.
April 22, 2017
The black birch catkins are even longer and yellower than yesterday, shining in the rain. The shadbush have traded blossoms for pale leaves.
April 21, 2017
A red-tailed hawk flies just inside the woods’ edge, past the birches with their catkins and the rambling old lilac just coming into bloom.
April 20, 2017
The rhyming couplets of a brown thrasher. A blue-headed vireo’s dreamy soliloquy. When the sun comes out, raindrops glisten on every twig.
April 19, 2017
Something sets off the neighbor’s rooster, and a few moments later a raven flies past the porch, croaking like a duck with laryngitis.
April 18, 2017
The tulip tree’s leaves have burst their buds—a pale green cloud. A gnatcatcher in the shadbush darts and hovers like a slow hummingbird.
April 17, 2017
I can’t see the pear tree behind the house, but from time to time a few petals flutter down among the cabbage white butterflies in the yard.