A gypsy moth caterpillar lowers itself on a silk thread almost to the ground, then reverses course and begins inching and thrashing back up.
Year: 2021
Venus in the dawn sky. Phoebe, field sparrow, wood pewee. The alarm-snorts of a deer.
Rain just past, tree leaves glisten in the sun. A brown thrasher holds forth like a street-corner prophet, hallelujah, hallelujah.
First light. Near where the stream gurgles under the road, a song sparrow sings a dream version of his usual song.
Four goldfinches take an intense discussion all around the yard. Two squirrels travel together much more slowly—must be mating season again.
Sun through thin clouds. Dame’s-rocket in the meadow keeps growing to extend the bloom: a slowly rising, purple mist.
The first clear sky in days. In the deep, holiday silence, each bird call sounds distinct, as if it comes from a far-off time or place.
Rainy and cold. An indigo bunting and a phoebe clash briefly in the air above the stream and retire to neighboring walnut branches.
Mid-morning, and the rain has dwindled into cold mizzle. In the marsh at the bottom of the meadow, the spring peepers start back up.
Dawn stealing influence from the just-past-full moon. The whip-poor-will awakening the catbird.
It’s so clear I can see the tiniest specks of aerial flotsam drifting past the sun. A cuckoo switches to his most plaintive call.
A mid-air tangle between a phoebe and a wood pewee ends with the latter calling once from a walnut branch and flying back into the woods.
Brightening sky. I watch a chipmunk on the wall beside the porch making her “chuck” call, so loud—using the stone as a resonator.
Waiting for rain, everything sounds like an augury—catbird, chipmunk, great-crested flycatcher—and just before the first drops, that hush.