Cool and breezy, with the clearest air in weeks. A redstart slowly circles the house, singing his sneeze-like song.
June 2021
6/13/2021
Sunrise past, the last of the night-time moths are fluttering up under the leaves. A sound like the forest drawing a breath.
6/12/2021
Wet, but at least it’s not raining. Wood thrush, vireo and tanager songs mingle at the woods’ edge. The wingbeats of a catbird.
6/11/2021
Overcast and cool. A titmouse appears to have developed a taste for caterpillars, circling the trunk of a walnut like a nuthatch.
6/10/2021
Downpour. An ant abandons its dead caterpillar. An earthworm dangles from a cardinal’s bill.
6/9/2021
Overcast and cool. In the garden, the bindweed has yet to flower, but its leaves are busy gathering holes.
6/8/2021
A late-morning pause in the rain. The sun comes out, and I notice that the first evening primroses have opened—that flat, obvious yellow.
6/7/2021
Gray sky gravid with bad weather. On either side of the road, the tall grass trembles: foraging chipmunks.
6/6/2021
A gypsy moth caterpillar lowers itself on a silk thread almost to the ground, then reverses course and begins inching and thrashing back up.
6/5/2021
Venus in the dawn sky. Phoebe, field sparrow, wood pewee. The alarm-snorts of a deer.
6/4/2021
Rain just past, tree leaves glisten in the sun. A brown thrasher holds forth like a street-corner prophet, hallelujah, hallelujah.
6/3/2021
First light. Near where the stream gurgles under the road, a song sparrow sings a dream version of his usual song.
6/2/2021
Four goldfinches take an intense discussion all around the yard. Two squirrels travel together much more slowly—must be mating season again.
6/1/2021
Sun through thin clouds. Dame’s-rocket in the meadow keeps growing to extend the bloom: a slowly rising, purple mist.