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.
Plummer’s Hollow
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.
Cool and clear; mist rising off the trees. From around the corner of the house, the zoom and chatter of a hummingbird’s courtship flight.
It’s not too hot to fight: a robin drives a chipmunk from the lilac. A minute later, a flicker drives a downy woodpecker off its den tree.
Hot and humid. A lone 17-year cicada’s uncanny call. Where last night a drunk intruder stumbled in the weeds, a cloud of gnats, hovering.
At first light, the sound of deer running through the woods: the crash of hooves, the swish of blossom-heavy branches of mountain laurel.
A slight breeze brings a shower of petals from the tulip tree, while a squirrel at the top of the black walnut makes it rain catkins.
A black leaf-footed bug squats head-down on a porch post. Two silver-spotted skippers circle and chase, eponymous spots glinting in the sun.
A catbird taps at the dining room window—the same glass that taunts the female cardinal. A tiny shadow darts through the grass: meadow vole.
The first peony, which opened yesterday, is too small to topple from the weight of rain. It merely tilts its flushed face toward the woods.
Drizzle. Just as I get the binoculars out, the cedar waxwings all take off whistling from the tulip tree and its outrageous yellow blooms.
A pileated woodpecker lands on the dead elm right beside the flicker den hole and knocks twice. A flicker pokes her head out. He flies off.
Six nuthatches—parents and fledglings—scour the trees from top to bottom, soft calls communicating who knows what instructive tidbits.