Overcast and damp. The roofs drip; leaves glisten. The sound of fast squirrel claws on bark. An animal under the house lets out a snarl.
Month: August 2024
Heavily overcast and still. Two whippoorwills call off to the east. Sunrise is imperceptible aside from a short blast of Carolina wren song.
Overcast and quiet, save for the occasional wood pewee. The bird-sound app flags a barred owl in my stomach.
Warm and humid, with a sickle moon high overhead. I battle mosquitos in between reading about eastern equine encephalitis on my phone.
Cool and quiet at sunrise. A hummingbird circles the space where a nectar feeder hung years ago. A black cherry tree at the woods’ edge is turning orange.
A half moon hangs overhead, its light lost to the dawn. A bat makes one last circuit of the yard, where the white tops of snakeroot are beginning to show.
A desultory dawn chorus of one Carolina wren and a towhee. I consider baring an arm to stop the mosquitoes from whining in my ear.
Clear and still, except for some noise from the quarry—the crusher digesting its breakfast of stone. A deer’s footsteps up in the woods. A scolding squirrel.
Another cold, clear morning. Robins streaked by the molt contend with blue jays for the best perches in the tops of the tall locusts, answering jeers with tuts.
Clear, cold, and still. A hummingbird finds the one wild bergamot blossom hiding next to the porch and circles its purple mop-head, tonguing a dozen tubes.
Clear and cold, with an inversion layer making the hollow noisy with traffic. When it wanes: church bells. A blue jay’s distress call.
Windy and cold, with the sun in and out of clouds. The Carolina wren’s usual enthusiasm sparks a red-eyed vireo to call exactly once.
Light rain at sunrise, drumming on the porch roof—not enough to still the crickets or keep the hummingbird from her appointed rounds.
Everything drips and glistens after last night’s storm. Red-bellied woodpeckers exchange calls then lapse into silence. A distant train.