A quiet gurgling from the springs on either side of my yard. Bands of light and darkness in the east. The sun pops out from behind a tree.
2023
February 24, 2023
Overcast with bright openings and the white noise of wind, raising the dead leaves once again, making them fly.
February 23, 2023
Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging cheeks.
February 22, 2023
Just enough thinning of clouds for a classic, red-in-the-morning wash of mauve in the east, where quarry trucks are loud with their first loads.
February 21, 2023
Interval of sun on a rainy morning—the forest shines and steams. The distant yammering of a pileated. The interstate’s whine.
February 20, 2023
Mid-morning, a lid of clouds slowly closes over the east. Caroling juncos fall silent. The wind picks up.
February 19, 2023
It’s cold, gray and still, but the woodpeckers are living it up: pileateds hammering, red-bellieds whinnying, and a downy drumming his loudest.
February 18, 2023
Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
February 17, 2023
Wind and rain. In the gray-brown woods, two silent pileated woodpeckers flap from tree to tree, wings like a revelation in black and white.
February 16, 2023
No sign of the sun after a lurid dawn—the forecasted rain has its P.R. down. I can smell it. I listen for the first drops through a torrent of birdsong.
February 15, 2023
High clouds yellow with sunrise appear to have some business off to the east. A downy woodpecker on a dead locust limb fires off a blast beat.
February 14, 2023
An hour past sunrise, it’s mostly clear and quiet except for two red-bellied woodpeckers, their whinnying starting to sound almost like purrs.
February 13, 2023
The western ridge turns barn-red with sunrise. As it fades to gold, down in the hollow a mob of crows starts up, jeering, denouncing.
February 12, 2023
Twenty minutes till sunrise, the half moon’s fuzzy ear. A mourning dove starts to call, taking a few tries to get the right notes.