The second cool morning in a row, but quieter and not quite as clear. A deer looks up at me more with annoyance than alarm and goes back to grazing.
7/22/2023
Cool and clear. A female hummingbird keeps hovering in front of my face and chirping, intermittently joined by two others. I am not wearing any bright colors. I’m left wondering what message I’ve failed to understand.
7/21/2023
Fog at first light. The random percussion of rain dripping off the trees slowly joined by bird calls: pewee, towhee, song sparrow, wren…
7/20/2023
Nuthatch scolding a gray squirrel, who scratches himself with a hind leg. The rising sun takes its place among the goldfinches.
7/19/2023
A ten-minute shower unmentioned in the forecast. The sky brightens. A tiny white moth circles the yard.
7/18/2023
Dawn fog loud with noise from the interstate, thanks to an inversion layer: it’s chilly for July. I don a flannel shirt and soon find myself daydreaming about autumn.
7/17/2023
The best way to summon a hummingbird, it seems, is with another hummingbird: as soon as one appears, there’s another to fight with it. A deer sneezes behind the springhouse.
7/16/2023
Heavily overcast and still, as if it’s going to rain at any moment. The usual birds saying the usual things. The deep-summer hegemony of green.
7/15/2023
Fog lingering into mid-morning. Whatever the crows are up to, it involves a lot of begging sounds. The wild garlic heads are beginning to split.
7/14/2023
The catbird mews and warbles, a hummingbird rockets back and forth, but it’s the mosquito’s still, small voice that gets my attention.
7/13/2023
Haze before the heat. The tulip poplar sprout in its circle of deer fence is waving its newest Mickey Mouse hands.
7/12/2023
Cool enough to seem autumnal, but for the wood thrush and hooded warbler calling from the woods’ edge and the hummingbirds buzzing in the bergamot.
7/11/2023
Cool and clear, apart from some high haze; the treetops glow with sunrise. One yellow leaf spirals down.
7/10/2023
Clearing after sunrise. A Carolina wren lands briefly on my open book, between two haiku.