Two antlerless deer pass the porch ten minutes apart, each grunting anxiously. Gray-brown now, they almost vanish into the dead goldenrod.
Dave Bonta
The brackens in my yard have turned from brown to burgundy. High in a walnut tree, a squirrel checks every webworm tent for unfallen nuts.
Four crows around the houses are voicing loud displeasure at something or other. I hear bemusement in the croak of a raven high overhead.
A bald-faced hornet nest hangs abandoned from the top of a birch. The sun finds a new hole in the forest and blinds me as it tops the ridge.
From behind the springhouse, the opening notes of a song sparrow’s song, and a moment later, the closing notes of a white-throated sparrow.
Many small birds chasing and gleaning. An old fall webworm tent hanging from a walnut tree gets a thorough going-over from a winter wren.
A chipmunk hangs by its hind feet from the thorny branch of a barberry bush, picking berries and stuffing them into its bulging cheeks.
The yard is white with the first frost, prostrate myrtle and stiltgrass leaves outlined as if in chalk. Leaves spiral down in the still air.
The rabbit ambles out of its favorite rose bush—no minks in sight this morning—and nibbles on a tuft of grass at the edge of the driveway.
A large, dark weasel flushes a rabbit from cover and stops, rearing up on its hind legs: mink! We stare at each other with mutual disbelief.
The witch hazel beside the house is yellow with old leaves and new flowers. Chickadees forage along the woods’ edge—wistful two-note songs.
Most of the maples have dropped their leaves since I was last on the porch, but the towhee’s breast still flickers rust-red in the lilac.
The lilac trembles from rain without and a flock of migrant sparrows within. The stiltgrass in the yard seems redder than yesterday.
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The Morning Porch will be on hiatus until October 9. (Keep visiting, though, to read the daily archival posts in the sidebar!)
Something glitters on a tansy stalk next to the porch: the hard foam surface of a praying mantis egg case. A tiny spider dangles alongside.