Cloudy and damp. The catbird is touring his latest improvisations all around the yard. I’m hearing strong towhee and wren influences.
Year: 2020
Sunny and humid. The strangled cries and croaks of ravens, at least four of them, wheeling just above the treetops.
Light rain. The towhee who usually taps on the windows appears in the garden with a long yellow caterpillar dangling from his bill.
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.
A spicebush swallowtail careens through the yard, where bracken fronds nod in three directions. A downy woodpecker upside-down on a limb.
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.
Crystal-clear and cool. A leaf-footed bug squats atop the dial thermometer, unmoving over the “50” even as the pointer inches toward 60.
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.
The trees are restless with rumors of distant storms. From somewhere nearby, the urgent chirps of nestlings whose parent has just returned.
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
Humidity thick as wool. Above the buzz of hummingbird dogfights, a distant roar of military jets, hopefully just on training runs.
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.
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.
Overcast. The first milky-white peony is open, facing the road where a sparrow struggles to swallow a large green caterpillar.