5:20. Bleary-eyed smudge of an eclipsed moon above the western ridge. 6:20. Pink clouds turn orange. The first song sparrow.
Clear and cooler. A female cardinal flies out of a barberry bush, her bill red as the berries. Crows argue over fresh additions to the compost.
Daybreak. A buck sniffing the ground for signs of estrus scratches his head with a back hoof. A mosquito sings into my ear.
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
Cold sunrise. The green hippogriff of a lilac just starting to yellow. Dry leaves whispering of deer in heat.
Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck.
Sun through a scrim of cloud. From within a flame-leaved barberry bush, the crisp ticking of a junco.
Clouds selectively erasing the stars at dawn. A strong inversion layer: traffic noise from the interstate mingles with barred owl calls.
A half hour after sunrise, a rattling in the fallen leaves: raindrops! Slowly accelerating into an actual shower. Which peters out much too soon.
Late in rising, I’m grateful to the oaks for still holding leaves—I don’t need sunglasses. My brother texts: Savannah sparrows in the field!
Pale columns of sky all along the ridge. Frost as white as my breath. A rising tide of chirps and trills as sunrise draws near.
Cold and mostly overcast, but the rising sun strikes my face a full hour earlier due to overnight thinning of the leaves.
Dawn. Clouds glow with the lights from town. The great bulk of the lilac against the dark woods, trembling in the wind.
Heavily overcast and quiet at dawn. A low surf of crickets. From the spruce grove a half mile away, a barred owl’s hoo-aw.