Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.
2021
June 20, 2021
Humidity so thick that breathing feels like vaping. Cabbage whites puddle in the road—the hallucinatory, slow fanning of 21 pairs of wings.
June 19, 2021
Sunrise pink fading to orange. The woods’-edge green grows more intense, and the birdsong more diverse.
June 18, 2021
High, hazy clouds dilute the sunlight. A chipping sparrow lands sideways on a tall dame’s-rocket stalk, singing as it bows under his weight.
June 17, 2021
The third gorgeous morning in a row. I could sit here forever, gaping at the light through the trees, if only it would last.
June 16, 2021
Clear and cold (46F/8C). A few, blue chinks in the green wall of leaves where the ridgetop oaks have been decimated by gypsy moth caterpillars.
June 15, 2021
Cool and breezy, with the clearest air in weeks. A redstart slowly circles the house, singing his sneeze-like song.
June 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.
June 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.
June 11, 2021
Overcast and cool. A titmouse appears to have developed a taste for caterpillars, circling the trunk of a walnut like a nuthatch.
June 10, 2021
Downpour. An ant abandons its dead caterpillar. An earthworm dangles from a cardinal’s bill.
June 9, 2021
Overcast and cool. In the garden, the bindweed has yet to flower, but its leaves are busy gathering holes.
June 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.
June 7, 2021
Gray sky gravid with bad weather. On either side of the road, the tall grass trembles: foraging chipmunks.