Like a bear on a unicycle, the big tulip tree at the woods’ edge with its tiny, perfect leaves fluttering in the breeze. Three gray squirrels slowly spiral round its trunk.
Plummer’s Hollow
Sunrise gutters in a gray bank of clouds. It’s cold. My breath hangs in the air like winter’s ghost.
The sun climbs through blossoming oaks whispery with wind. Pileated woodpeckers exchange volleys of thunder. A downy woodpecker rattles like a beggar with a cup.
Rain thundering on the porch roof. As it slackens off, I can hear the bright warbles of a Baltimore oriole, back to reclaim the yard.
Under a monochrome cloud cover, all the earth tones of blossoming oaks and birches, catkins alive to the lightest brush of a breeze.
Clear and cool at sunrise, with ovenbirds calling in the woods and a red-winged blackbird in the meadow. Two squirrels climb high into the canopy to taste the oak blossoms.
A smear of sun, strong enough to cast thin shadows. Four white-throated sparrows trade variations of the same song like old-time fiddlers, trying slightly different arrangements, switching keys.
Cloudy with patches of light and dark and the smell of burnt caramel from town. The woods’ edge is gauzy with catkins and tiny leaves. A hint of moisture on my cheek.
Heavily overcast. A raven flies over with a falsetto croak. A field sparrow circles the house, declaring his territory.
A cooler sunrise this morning with wind from the north. A ruby-crowned kinglet warbles up and down the scale. A hen turkey picks her way through spring onions.
White sun in a white sky. Off in the woods, the tattered white flag of a shadbush in bloom.
The sun is at half-power, shining through cirrus clouds, the still-bare branches of oaks and black birches, and the trill of a goldfinch, which shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
Clear and still with frost in the yard and the gibbous moon caught in the treetops like a deflated balloon. A brown creeper sprials up a walnut tree. The sun comes up.
A cold wind rummaging through the forest, mixing up the sounds of crows and trains and sirens. The sun appears for a second or two at a time.