Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.
Year: 2021
Humidity so thick that breathing feels like vaping. Cabbage whites puddle in the road—the hallucinatory, slow fanning of 21 pairs of wings.
Sunrise pink fading to orange. The woods’-edge green grows more intense, and the birdsong more diverse.
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.
The third gorgeous morning in a row. I could sit here forever, gaping at the light through the trees, if only it would last.
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.
Cool and breezy, with the clearest air in weeks. A redstart slowly circles the house, singing his sneeze-like song.
Sunrise past, the last of the night-time moths are fluttering up under the leaves. A sound like the forest drawing a breath.
Wet, but at least it’s not raining. Wood thrush, vireo and tanager songs mingle at the woods’ edge. The wingbeats of a catbird.
Overcast and cool. A titmouse appears to have developed a taste for caterpillars, circling the trunk of a walnut like a nuthatch.
Downpour. An ant abandons its dead caterpillar. An earthworm dangles from a cardinal’s bill.
Overcast and cool. In the garden, the bindweed has yet to flower, but its leaves are busy gathering holes.
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.
Gray sky gravid with bad weather. On either side of the road, the tall grass trembles: foraging chipmunks.