Overcast and breezy, with a strong smell of burning chemicals. Off in the distance, a brown thrasher is singing whatever pops into his head.
Month: June 2023
Clearing skies after a damp night. A Cooper’s hawk calls from just inside the woods’ edge—a single trill, if that’s what you call it. A ratchet. A round.
Thick fog. The wren sings from the other side of the house, seemingly unconcerned by losing two days’ labor when their unbalanced new nest fell out of the rafters.
A pair of Carolina wrens have mostly completed a nest in the rafters that wasn’t there yesterday morning, seven feet away from my chair. I love the soft sounds they make to each other as they build.
Foggy at dawn for the wood thrush’s solo. The wild garlics are beginning to raise their egret heads.
Rain. A groundhog rummages loudly under the porch. A bumblebee moves to the bright side of a porch column to dry her wings.
My surprise at a rainy morning is only exceeded by my surprise at having nearly slept through it, a gauzy drizzle just beginning to shine.
The sun rising through high-altitude murk isn’t much brighter than the goldfinches chattering in the treetops, less than three hours till the solstice.
Cloudy and cool. I carry an offering of soup bones out to the ravens. A great-crested flycatcher lets loose.
Monday morning: back to the literal grind from the quarry. The red-eyed vireo’s usual spell makes nothing happen. A loose strand of spider silk catches the sun.
The light is still murky and cool at mid-morning as lulls in the avian chorus lengthen. The breeze riffling through walnut leaves. A cowbird’s liquid note.
Sun through thin clouds. A silent crow skims the treetops where a cuckoo coos. Someone’s offsprings beg for more breakfast.
The soft noise of steady rain; birdcalls sound half-submerged. I watch wisps of cloud drift through the yard.
Unseasonably cool at daybreak. Underneath the excited back-and-forth of a redstart and an indigo bunting, the soft calls of a gnatcatcher.