From a garden across the way, the desolate barks of a dog locked outside. A breeze showers the table with firethorn blossoms.
May 2019
5/21/2019
Breezy and cool. The yard rings with oriole song. A Cooper’s hawk skims the treetops, wings lit up by the rising sun.
5/20/2019
A hen turkey going past the house catches sight of me and freezes. Nervous clucks, then the huge bird taking flight with surprising grace.
5/19/2019
Humid and warm—our first truly summer-like day. The wood pewee, who just returned yesterday, drawls his two-note song from the woods’ edge.
5/18/2019
Chipmunks chatter alarm up in the woods, and a moment later the squirrels. I remember the terrified bleating I heard at 1:30 in the morning.
5/17/2019
The first, small, maple samaras are spinning down out of the gray sky. I’m startled when one seems to rise: a same-sized insect.
5/16/2019
A scraggly-looking doe, still in her gray winter pelt, crosses the stream below the house, pausing to graze on a multiflora rose.
5/15/2019
After three days of rain, with tree leaves still growing, the sun illuminates a different forest: even greener, and more full of whispers.
5/14/2019
Overcast and cold. I watch a gnatcatcher in action, its chirp after each snap. The wood thrush makes a circuit of the yard trees, singing.
5/13/2019
Cold rain; the treetops disappearing into cloud. A Carolina wren lands on the railing with a beak full of leaves and a self-important air.
5/12/2019
A flock of warblers at the woods’ edge in the pouring rain: flashes of redstart, cerulean, black-and-white. A singing black-throated green.
5/11/2019
Mingling with bird calls, the distant, excited cries of small children. The woods glow green. A hummingbird buzzes in to the bleeding-heart.
5/10/2019
Humid. A dark cloud comes in, and the tin roof over the oil tanks rattles for 15 seconds—not even enough raindrops to rinse the pollen off.
5/9/2019
Singers change with the weather: in the mist, wood thrush and cerulean warbler. Scarlet tanager in the drizzle. Indigo bunting in the rain.