Cold and overcast, and the stream still in spate. Some bird wheezes in the treetops like a small bellows or a cheerleader for the wind.
Plummer’s Hollow
When the rain finally slackens off, I can hear a vireo, goldfinches, the catbird, a train horn, and the throaty roar of a well-fed creek.
The hollow tock-tocking of chipmunks. A milkweed seed floats past: quite a trick, I think, to turn a white beard into a balloon.
Back to sweater weather. The catbird in the French lilac has found a mate—they’re hopping around apparently evaluating nesting material.
Every pit in the porch floor’s paint is stained with pollen. A small samara helicopters past, too young to sprout but not too young to fly.
A great-crested flycatcher responds to a red-bellied woodpecker’s trill. A squirrel missing half its tail fixes me with a hostile stare.
Overcast and cool. Two male catbirds are calling from the old lilacs in adjacent yards. The world is somehow still as it should be.
Breezy and warm. A chipmunk scrambles through the blossoming barberry bush next to the stream, releasing waves of its sperm-like odor.
The bud-burst woods is a backlit canvas of pointillist green. A pileated woodpecker hops down a log, her scarlet crest flashing as she taps.
Birdsong, rustling in the leaf duff, a distant plane: soundtrack to a movie starring the landscape where the only real story is the weather.
Three clumps of pale mushrooms have appeared in the yard, one bearing an old leaf aloft like an extra parasol. Waves of lilac scent.
The old cherry stump beside the porch has once again attracted a pair of nest-minded chickadees. They pop in and out of its many holes.
Overcast and cool. I’m outside for an hour and there’s no point at which something—chipmunk, squirrel, towhee, siren—isn’t signalling alarm.
I sit with my feet propped on the top railing as usual. A chickadee with a beak full of grass lands on my boots and hops from toe to toe.