Sunrise somewhere between showers, cold and sodden, the sky flat-white like the eye of a dead fish. No flies for the flycatchers, no sun for the wren.
Dave Bonta
April 9, 2025
Below freezing still, and the sky more clear than not. Up on the ridge, a hermit thrush is singing: faint chimes, as if some gate to paradise had a doorbell.
April 8, 2025
A patchwork sky at sunrise with a bitter wind. The daffodils’ cups are all overturned. A few lost snowflakes straggle past.
April 7, 2025
Cold rain with an occasional rattle of ice pellets. The creek has risen from a gurgle to a gush. The cardinal sings from deep within the juniper.
April 6, 2025
Damp gloom suffused with white-throated sparrow song, high and thin and tremulous, amid bright splashes of yellow: daffodils, forsythia, spicebush.
April 5, 2025
Overcast and quiet, after the drama of a thunderstorm at dawn. The creekside currant bushes have turned intensely green. A hen turkey’s peevish rasp.
April 4, 2025
A damp and gloomy sunrise. Juncos twitter in the tops of black birches. A cowbird’s liquid note.
April 3, 2025
Hard rain slackening after sunrise. As the drumming on the roofs subsides, I can hear a torrent of Carolina wren song and towhee calls.
April 2, 2025
Gray sky with a smudge of sun, as bright as the half-out forsythia against the woods. A woodpecker and his echo. The rumble of freight.
April 1, 2025
Cold, windy, and overcast. The ring of daffodils in my yard offers a bright yellow rebuke to the grayness. Drink your tea! says the towhee. I’m trying.
March 31, 2025
Rain easing off along with the dawn chorus. The sky brightens, and a brown creeper on the walnut tree beside the road bursts into song.
March 30, 2025
Daffodils are open under a gray-wool sky. A cowbird’s liquid note. Up by the garage, a towhee is calling.
March 29, 2025
A freakishly warm wind seasoned with rain. A red squirrel’s scold-call launches the dawn chorus: phoebe, wren, cardinal, white-throated sparrow. A turkey gobbles.
March 28, 2025
Sunrise from under a lid of cloud turning the ridge orange. The robin sings a few bars. A propellor plane fades into the distance.