Sunny and cool at midmorning, with the smell of woodsmoke drifing up from the valley. The bluejay who stumps the bird app is making his one-of-a-kind call — almost a croon. At random moments, black walnuts drop onto the driveway with a thud.
September 16,
A knife-thin moon fades into the dawn sky. The only cloud huddles in the bottom corner of the meadow, where a phoebe is calling.
Sun in the top of the tall tulip poplar—yellow crowning yellow. The last nighttime cricket falls silent. Off through the thinning woods, new chinks of sky.
Cold (46F) with thin, high clouds. Black walnuts knocking on the roof. A red-tailed hawk drops in to visit the squirrels.
Overcast and rainy. in the dim light, sunrise is evidenced only by the appearance of mosquitoes. One after another they land on my knuckles.
Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.
Sun! The meadow glows goldenrod-yellow. Birch leaves at the woods’ edge tremble with warblers. A mosquito sings her thirsty note in my ear.
Sun floods the treetops. A red-tailed hawk glides in and lands with a thump. In the dark lilac, a tiny winter wren bustles about.
Just in from the woods’ edge, pileated woodpeckers are carrying on like drunks at a party, hollering, pounding, shrieking with joy or rage.
Another perfect day. From just inside the woods’ edge, the sledgehammer blows of a pileated woodpecker destroying a city of ants.
Another cold morning: just one bee for all this goldenrod. The neighbors’ rooster like some teenage band member practicing for a pep rally.
Under a bowed head of goldenrod, a black and yellow garden spider hangs head-down, her web glittering with drops from last night’s rain.
From just inside the woods, a bird call I don’t recognize—an anxious couple of notes. The purple asters slowly unclench to an overcast sky.
Coldest morning of the month so far. I notice that each limb of the dead cherry is growing a shaggy coat of turkey-tail fungus.