A gypsy moth caterpillar lowers itself on a silk thread almost to the ground, then reverses course and begins inching and thrashing back up.
2021
June 5, 2021
Venus in the dawn sky. Phoebe, field sparrow, wood pewee. The alarm-snorts of a deer.
June 4, 2021
Rain just past, tree leaves glisten in the sun. A brown thrasher holds forth like a street-corner prophet, hallelujah, hallelujah.
June 3, 2021
First light. Near where the stream gurgles under the road, a song sparrow sings a dream version of his usual song.
June 2, 2021
Four goldfinches take an intense discussion all around the yard. Two squirrels travel together much more slowly—must be mating season again.
June 1, 2021
Sun through thin clouds. Dame’s-rocket in the meadow keeps growing to extend the bloom: a slowly rising, purple mist.
May 31, 2021
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.
May 30, 2021
Rainy and cold. An indigo bunting and a phoebe clash briefly in the air above the stream and retire to neighboring walnut branches.
May 29, 2021
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.
May 28, 2021
Dawn stealing influence from the just-past-full moon. The whip-poor-will awakening the catbird.
May 27, 2021
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.
May 26, 2021
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.
May 25, 2021
Brightening sky. I watch a chipmunk on the wall beside the porch making her “chuck” call, so loud—using the stone as a resonator.
May 24, 2021
Waiting for rain, everything sounds like an augury—catbird, chipmunk, great-crested flycatcher—and just before the first drops, that hush.