Cloudy and cold. In the thinning treetops, a squirrel takes a wild leap to lose a suitor. Tulip tree samaras helicopter down.
October 2021
October 16, 2021
The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.
October 14, 2021
Just past sunrise. Ground fog in the meadow full of white-throated sparrows. A screech owl trills from the powerline.
October 13, 2021
In thin fog, the soft notes of juncos and white-throated sparrows taking their morning baths in the shelter of a dogwood beside the springhouse.
October 12, 2021
Still, with a flat-white sky. The throat-rattles of a crow chasing off a sharp-shinned hawk. The black birches fill with kinglets.
October 11, 2021
Misty and overcast, with intermittent showers of small birds in the treetops. A European hornet lands on the railing to clean her mouthparts.
October 10, 2021
The smell of rain without rain falling until past full daylight, and all the chirps and calls of migrants foraging and settling in to roost.
October 9, 2021
Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the sky darkens again. The fierce yet querulous cries of a Cooper’s hawk skimming the treetops.
October 8, 2021
Fog at sunrise. A doe leads her two grown fawns to the wild apple tree—an exuberant clatter of hooves.
October 7, 2021
Rain and fog. With the goldenrod going gray, the yellow has moved from the meadow to the woods’ edge: spicebush, walnut, birch, elm, tulip tree.
October 6, 2021
Overcast at dawn. The silence is broken by the periodic splats of black walnuts. A barred owl’s single, round note.
October 5, 2021
Sunrise hidden by fog, which only turns a lighter shade of gray. Rain falling from the leaves. Leaves falling from the rain.
October 3, 2021
A low cloud ceiling gravid with rain. It’s quiet. Every few seconds, another yellow leaf zigzags down.
October 2, 2021
Mares’ tails reddening in the east. The reedy songs of white-throated sparrows. A raven’s nasal croak.