The best way to summon a hummingbird, it seems, is with another hummingbird: as soon as one appears, there’s another to fight with it. A deer sneezes behind the springhouse.
Month: July 2023
Heavily overcast and still, as if it’s going to rain at any moment. The usual birds saying the usual things. The deep-summer hegemony of green.
Fog lingering into mid-morning. Whatever the crows are up to, it involves a lot of begging sounds. The wild garlic heads are beginning to split.
The catbird mews and warbles, a hummingbird rockets back and forth, but it’s the mosquito’s still, small voice that gets my attention.
Haze before the heat. The tulip poplar sprout in its circle of deer fence is waving its newest Mickey Mouse hands.
Cool enough to seem autumnal, but for the wood thrush and hooded warbler calling from the woods’ edge and the hummingbirds buzzing in the bergamot.
Cool and clear, apart from some high haze; the treetops glow with sunrise. One yellow leaf spirals down.
Clearing after sunrise. A Carolina wren lands briefly on my open book, between two haiku.
Sun through thin clouds. A brief eddy of camphor-like fragrance, as if something has just trampled through a patch of yarrow.
It’s not raining. A hummingbird inspects my bergamot patch—not quite open—and dips into a soapwort bloom before zooming off.
A foggy sunrise. The catbird circles the house, mimicking the Carolina wren on double speed.
A still morning. A half-grown walnut lets go of its branch while I’m looking at it, prompting an odd feeling of guilt.
The bluest sky I’ve seen in weeks. A hooded warbler calls at intervals. A black walnut lands on the road with a surprisingly loud thud.
Cool and humid—enough to muffle almost all valley noise. The sun goes back in. A carpenter bee sizes up the rafters.