Cloudy and damp. The catbird is touring his latest improvisations all around the yard. I’m hearing strong towhee and wren influences.
2020
June 19, 2020
Sunny and humid. The strangled cries and croaks of ravens, at least four of them, wheeling just above the treetops.
June 18, 2020
Light rain. The towhee who usually taps on the windows appears in the garden with a long yellow caterpillar dangling from his bill.
June 16, 2020
Another gorgeous morning. The bird songs don’t change when the sun goes in, but it’s only then that I hear their melancholy undertones.
June 15, 2020
A spicebush swallowtail careens through the yard, where bracken fronds nod in three directions. A downy woodpecker upside-down on a limb.
June 14, 2020
If the sun isn’t going to shine, we still have the irises, the evening primroses, and a goldfinch fresh from his bath: a trifecta of yellow.
June 13, 2020
Crystal-clear and cool. A leaf-footed bug squats atop the dial thermometer, unmoving over the “50” even as the pointer inches toward 60.
June 12, 2020
A tiger swallowtail flits through the top of the tulip tree, which this year because of the late frost is bare of blooms for the first time.
June 11, 2020
The trees are restless with rumors of distant storms. From somewhere nearby, the urgent chirps of nestlings whose parent has just returned.
June 10, 2020
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
June 10, 2020
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
June 9, 2020
Silver-spotted skippers chase over dame’s-rocket. A catbird balancing on a dead weed stalk plucks a green bug from a blade of grass.
June 8, 2020
Both species of native cuckoos are calling. A dragonfly courses back and forth across the sun-drenched yard until I almost see it as a pond.
June 5, 2020
Overcast. The first milky-white peony is open, facing the road where a sparrow struggles to swallow a large green caterpillar.