Cold and clear. An Acadian flycatcher gleans breakfast from the undersides of leaves, among the green dreadlocks of a blossoming walnut.
2023
May 24, 2023
As early as I get up, I still feel like a late riser: just past six and the birds are already winding down, the sun glimmering though the trees—an eye reddened by smoke from distant forests.
May 23, 2023
Humid but blessedly cool; the air’s alive with birdsong and slow-moving insects. Rabbits chase and graze among half-grown bracken.
May 22, 2023
A few minutes past sunrise, from the still-deep shadows under the trees, the song of a vagrant Swainson’s thrush, hoarse but ethereal, rising in pitch like a rhetorical question.
May 21, 2023
In the half-light of dawn, a Carolina wren burbles aggressively inches away from my ear. Three fledgling wrens blink awake in the porch rafters.
May 20, 2023
The snap of a gnatcatcher’s beak behind the lilac, and just beyond, a wood pewee’s melismatic drawl. The sun glimmers briefly through a hole in the clouds.
May 19, 2023
An American redstart calling from the top of the nearest walnut sounds so insistent, but about what? I’m here! This is my tree! Or maybe just: Good morning!
May 18, 2023
High-altitude murk gives the low-angled light a timeless feel. It’s barely above freezing, but the birds still sound ecstatic. Tennessee or Blackburnian warbler? That accelerating buzz…
May 17, 2023
Crystal-clear for the first time since the trees leafed out. A breeze riffles through them—shifting curtains of light and shadow.
May 16, 2023
Another deliciously cool dawn. A wood thrush on the far side of the yard sings a simplified, less ethereal version of their call—the result no doubt of having been raised too close to traffic or industrial noise.
May 15, 2023
Clear and cool. The sun struggles to infiltrate the forest canopy, where a great-crested flycatcher is whinnying. Gnatcatchers forage on the undersides of leaves.
May 14, 2023
A catbird running through his dawn monologue is drowned out by a whippoorwill. Fog forms in the lower hollow, extending a ghostly finger into the marsh.
May 13, 2023
Overcast with a few drops of rain among the bird calls. A hummingbird hovers over a peony bud and flicks it with his tongue.
May 12, 2023
A turkey hunter’s pickup rumbles past. The moon pale as a glowworm glimmers in the treetops as a whippoorwill clears his throat.