Between dawn and sunrise, a small rainstorm’s pleasant susurration drowns out everything else. As it eases, a Carolina wren takes over, caroling in a minor key.
2023
October 19, 2023
One degree above freezing and very still. I add my breath to the ground fog rising through yellow leaves into the sunlight.
October 18, 2023
A flat white sky crossed by a crow. Woods’-edge chipmunks in a chipping contest. The color.
October 17, 2023
Gloomy and cold at dawn. From the depths of the seed-laden goldenrod, the first, bright chips and whistles as the sparrow horde wakes up.
October 16, 2023
Still no frost. A Carolina wren putt-putts at the woods’ edge. From the powerline, a white-throated sparrow’s plaintive “Oh sweet Canada…”
October 15, 2023
Overcast but brightening. Snow birds are moving through the half-bare lilac, exchanging notes. Titmice and chickadees forage in the thinning birches.
October 14, 2023
The pleasing monotony of a cold autumn rain, drowning out all other sound except for a low throbbing in the distance. Leaves fall drunkenly, careening this way and that.
October 13, 2023
Six degrees above freezing and clear at sunrise. The spicebushes next to the road are at their most luminous yellow. Chipmunks tick like asynchronous clocks.
October 11, 2023
Under a thin grin of moon, the maples reclaiming their red. Three crows wake up with awe in their throats.
October 10, 2023
Within the moon’s crescent, its dark bulk is aglow—a reminder that Earth is still, somehow, a source of light. A towhee calls twice and goes back to sleep.
October 9, 2023
An hour before dawn, the crescent moon hangs just above the ridge, with Venus blazing like a campfire through the trees. It’s cold. An inversion layer brings the sound of every engine waking in the valley.
October 8, 2023
Windy and cold. In the wall of leaves at the woods’ edge, the first few fragments of what will be my winter sky.
October 7, 2023
Rain clouds moving out by mid-morning, when blue sky appears, revealing a higher layer of cirrus moving west while shreds of cumulus keep flying east.
October 6, 2023
Heavily overcast—what the weather app calls “light rain”—with a crow yelling in the distance and a yellow-bellied sapsucker mewing like a kitten.