Back to normal April at last: cool and damp and shining, the woods’ edge a haze of tiny leaves and catkins. The ancient bridal wreath bush is white again.
Plummer’s Hollow
Sun glimmering through fog as wild turkeys whine and gobble, mourning doves moan, and a red-winged blackbird sings in the marsh.
A towhee sings from the woods’ edge as the eastern sky brightens: Drink your, drink your, drink your… I raise my tea in salute.
A lull in the morning chorus. Contrails of all ages litter the sky like a boneyard. A woodpecker’s fast rattle.
Unseasonably warm at dawn, trees swaying, and I have to shake my head hard to dispel a vision of charred trunks and smoking hillsides. A pale moth flutters past.
Two phoebes in a singing contest at dawn. A warm breeze. The half-moon settles in a tall pine.
The rambling old lilac is twice as green as it was yesterday, beginning to glow as the sun climbs out of some early-morning murk.
Clear and cold, with the third-quarter moon just cresting the trees. The dawn chorus begins with a gobbling turkey. A minute later the robin joins in.
Clear and cold with the deep quiet that only a major holiday can bring. A distant train. A Carolina wren’s sleepy start to the dawn chorus.
Still and cold at dawn. A cardinal sings once in the moonlight and goes back to sleep for ten minutes. A small cloud turns to rust.
A small flock of white-breasted nuthatches appears at the woods’ edge, singing and zipping around, just as the sun is fading into gray clouds.
First morning back after vacation, the setting moon is somehow already full. A fox sparrow sings beside the old springhouse. Up in the woods, the first blue-headed vireo tunes up.
Rain and fog linger from a pre-dawn thunderstorm as the sky brightens. The nasal calls of woodcocks mingle with a torrent of robin song.
Gray and still. A robin sings softly for a change. Two whitetails below my mother’s back porch bound up the hillside and out of sight.