The edge of a small storm an hour past sunrise brings another shower and a restless breeze. From the treetops, the sound of nestlings begging to be fed.
June 2024
June 29, 2024
Heavily overcast; 88% humidity. I’m clapping out the lives of mosquitoes, one after another—too big and slow for their own good. A breeze springs up.
June 28, 2024
Clear and cold. The beeps of quarry trucks mingle with the shrill calls of red-bellied woodpeckers. Two hummingbirds in a high-speed chase fly out of the woods and up over the house.
June 27, 2024
Clear and cool. Two Carolina wrens are burbling at the woods’ edge, while a cardinal is assaulting all the windows.
June 26, 2024
Two hours past sunrise, a scarlet tanager sings unchallenged from a tree in the yard. The sunlight fades in and out. A mourning dove calls in the distance.
June 25, 2024
Clear and cool. A deer snorts alarm up in the woods. A female cardinal picks a black raspberry on her way through my yard.
June 24, 2024
Breezy, cool and clear, with chimney swifts circling high overhead and a single raven hurtling past without flapping a wing.
June 23, 2024
Overcast. Sunrise is when the crows wake up. A large brown moth tucks itself into the eaves.
June 22, 2024
Ten minutes past sunrise, the catbird begins to improvise. The first mosquito welt of the day rises on the back of my hand.
June 21, 2024
A hazy sunrise for the first full day of astronomical summer. The feral garlics are raising crane’s-bill heads.
June 20, 2024
A cool beginning to another hot day. The chipping sparrow’s dry rattle. Phoebe and wood-pewee from either side of the woods’ edge like the citizens of neighboring countries comparing accents.
June 19, 2024
Mist rising from the meadow. In the woods, one moss-covered bole of a black birch is illuminated by a random shaft of sun.
June 18, 2024
Everything still drips from last night’s storm. I abandon the porch for a quick hike before the heat.
June 17, 2024
Clear and still. A flicker’s eponymous chant from the sunlit crown of a black locust. The black raspberries in my yard are already blood-red.