Everything drips. A wood thrush chases a rival out of the woods and pauses in a spicebush for a look around.
Plummer’s Hollow
The sun behind a nearly motionless cloud casts a pair of crepuscular rays like vast, dark wings. A hen turkey stalks into the woods.
Overcast and cool. Two deer run into the woods as another snorts alarm up in the field. Another hummingbird buzzes me, ruby gorget ablaze.
Fog and mizzle. The usual doe and fawn graze in the springhouse meadow, their ears swivelling above the sodden vegetation.
Warm and humid. A hummingbird interrupts my writing, hovering in front of my face, then zipping up to where a feeder once hung.
One gray squirrel shadows another, nose to tail, down the gray driveway. Mid-morning thunder. A patter of rain.
A deer grazes a few feet away; I can hear blades of grass tearing. The sun almost breaks through a thin spot in the clouds.
A catbird looks for worms in the herb garden. The first bindweed trumpets blare their silent music into a cloudless sky.
Windy and cool. The pale undersides of leaves turning in unison like shoals of fish. A robin and a tanager trading off.
Wind has blown all the humidity out to sea. The forest is astir with its comings and goings, until I can barely remain seated.
Hazy and humid. The sun in the crown of the big dead maple. A hen turkey putting like a slow motor, summoning her chicks.
The sun clears the trees sooner than seems possible, and the gnatcatcher’s extreme excitement is not a good sign. A sapsucker calls.
Rain thickens into downpour, but a very small moth continues to fly back and forth. The evening primroses remain half closed.
An odor from my childhood: the humid oak forest of my grandparents’ South Jersey yard. A chipmunk dashes under my chair.