Cool and clear. The witch hazel in front of the living room window, which I haven’t gotten around to pruning out, is already turning gold.
2020
September 20, 2020
The dial thermometer’s red arrow has just missed 0°C. A black tiger moth caterpillar is curled by the stoop like a dropped comma.
September 19, 2020
Cold and clear. Jays call up in the woods: at least one oak must’ve defied the drought and held on to its acorns.
September 18, 2020
First light. Ghostly figures in the meadow shrink into common snakeroot. The distant gargle of a truck jake-breaking off the interstate.
September 17, 2020
Dawn. Two wrens rustle awake inside the old hornets’ nest. A doe and her nearly grown fawn graze in the yard.
September 16, 2020
Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.
September 15, 2020
Weak sun. The bright blue of New York asters almost lost among the goldenrod. It takes me a moment to place a distant bird call: chicken.
June 28, 2020
The towhee interrupts his window-tapping to attend to fledglings in the tall grass. Tree sparrows in the garden trill as they mate.
June 27, 2020
Overcast and cool. The wood thrushes continue to call well past mid-morning. Beebalms are beginning to flaunt their spiky, scarlet coiffures.
June 26, 2020
Five hummingbirds briefly orbit the feeder before taking off after each other. A gnatcatcher bombs the driveway with a nestling’s fecal sac.
June 25, 2020
A goldfinch lands on a hummingbird feeder and looks all around for seeds. The butterfly known as a red-spotted purple rests on a folding chair.
June 24, 2020
After days of humidity, a dry high. A bumblebee lands on the sunny side of a porch column and cleans her antennae.
June 23, 2020
Three Carolina wrens kvetching on and on in the heat. Up in the woods, a Cooper’s hawk chatters twice. Could they be nesting again?
June 21, 2020
A butterfly’s erratic flight-path is the main thing distinguishing it from the odd falling leaf in this humid air saturated with birdsong.