Clear and cool as an October morning. Treetop oak leaves turn orange in the sunrise. All the crows wake up.
Plummer’s Hollow
Milk-white sky and the white noise of tree crickets. A pileated woodpecker cackles to herself at the top of a tall locust.
Clear but with atmospheric haze, so the sunlight leaking down the trees looks murky behind the goldfinches’ purer yellow.
Light fog in the treetops. A hummingbird checks the hook where we hung a feeder two years ago, hovers in front of my face, goes back to the hook and looks at me.
The first yellow leaves on the walnuts: it’s late summer already. The fog hides trees and reveals old spiderwebs like messages in invisible ink.
Rain and fog. A wood thrush sings three times and falls silent. A mourning dove goes on and on.
Cool beginning to another scorcher. A fly goes for a walk down a porch column. The thud of a walnut on the road.
Cool and crystal clear. The buzz of battling hummingbirds below the porch where jewelweed has eluded the deer.
Cloudy and cool. A male hummingbird pauses over the faded bergamot patch, then buzzes off.
Overcast at sunrise. A meadowhawk dragonfly zips back and forth, inches above the rain-soaked vegetation.
Lightly overcast and cool. A molting warbler skulks in the old lilac, foraging for breakfast on the undersides of leaves.
Cool and crystal-clear. A wood thrush sings as if it’s still nesting season. The western ridge turns red.
Bleary sun. Tree leaves are all astir, but not by much. Those birds who still sing make it sound perfunctory.
Cool, overcast, and humid. A breeze brings the smell of ozone and a hush of rain finishing its journey down from the trees.