A meteor streaks the dawn sky—a fast, yellow brushstroke. From over the ridge, the quarry’s dull grind. The first, faint twittering from the meadow.
Dave Bonta
Clear and cold, with sun in the treetops. A pileated woodpecker in the yard lets loose with a cackle, prompting an immediate reply from off in the distance.
Cold and still at sunrise. A hummingbird zooms past, pausing over a snakeroot that is almost in bloom.
An autumnal sunrise, with crisp air and the creek full of voices, bracken browning in the yard, and the walnut leaves experimenting with carotenoids.
Steady rain with a bit of a breeze—the remains of a hurricane that got the wind knocked out of her and lost her eye. At 7:39 the Carolina wren finally pipes up.
Drizzle. A family of wrens make the sprawling old lilac sing and shimmy.
Rain at dawn, tapering off by sunrise. Everything looks drenched. From behind the house, an indigo bunting’s cascade of notes.
Nearly silent at sunrise, except for the field crickets playing their only hit: so much autumn and melancholy in that raspy metronome.
Clear at sunrise, and cool enough that the crickets are still. I notice the big tulip tree at the woods’ edge has shed all its drought-stressed leaves and is green again.
Partly cloudy and cool at sunrise, with 97% humidity and very little noise from—I’m guessing—valleys full of fog. A single-engine plane fades into the distance.
Cool and very humid. A thin cloud forms in the treetops, shot through with sun. A screech owl trills.
Darkness falls at 7:50 a.m. as a thunderstorm rumbles in. The yellow walnut leaves fluttering lazily down seem oddly unaffected by sudden sheets of rain.
Half an hour past sunrise, a hummingbird and a hoverfly both find my head to be an object of interest. A red-bellied woodpecker cackles from a tall locust.
Rain drips from the roof and from the trees. Clouds are thinning out. The topmost leaves of the tall tulip poplar are waving.