Just like yesterday the clear light, the mid-morning doe with her fawn. But today there’s a second fawn, prancing, kicking up its heels.
Plummer’s Hollow
A black snake leaves the flicker nest-hole and begins a perilous descent of the smooth trunk, a bulge in its midsection from all the eggs.
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See my blog post on the whole flicker-black snake saga at Via Negativa.
Cool, bright and clear—the kind of morning that used to nearly break my heart with longing, I never knew for what. I go clean the kitchen.
An indigo bunting lands on a grass stalk and sinks from view. A white moth on a white column trembles for an instant when the rain returns.
First light. The half-moon has just cleared the trees. Behind the other bird calls, an almost continuous rattle from the chipping sparrows.
A warm morning at last. Waxwings whistle at the tops of the tall locusts, but from the phoebe nest, only silence: the young have fledged.
Bright blue sky. A cabbage white butterfly pauses in its zig-zag journey to circle a patch of dogbane leaves illuminated by the sun.
The flickers trade places, and the male, fresh from sitting in the darkness, perches for a few seconds on a dead branch bent like a hook.
Bracken ferns in the yard crowd together as if trying to hide from the sun. A cerulean warbler like a small power saw stuttering to life.
Wind from a distant storm blows the leaves backwards. In lieu of thunder, a downy woodpecker’s fast rattle on a hollow limb.
An intruder—another flicker—quietly descends the elm, pokes its head in the nest hole and is promptly chased off by the current occupant.
Another of the dead cherry’s limbs broke off in the night, leaving just one more forked limb and a cluster of stumps, scabrous with fungi.
A chipping sparrow emerges from the lilac, pursued by the high-pitched cries of nestlings. It lands and wipes its bill on a dead branch.
The caution of wild things. Male and female cardinal taking turns bathing in the stream. The chipmunk rising furtively to its hind legs.