A song so familiar it takes several minutes to register that this is new, the first I’ve heard it since last fall: common yellowthroat.
April 26, 2011
Thanks to insomnia, I have two mornings: one with ground fog lit by the waning moon at dawn, the other hot and abuzz with carpenter bees.
April 25, 2011
A white haze on the bank above the road: the shadbush is finally beginning to blossom. A brown thrasher in the yard says everything twice.
April 24, 2011
Peonies have broken ground: skinny red claws reaching for the light. The whining clucks of a hen turkey separated from the flock.
April 23, 2011
Four gray squirrels interrupt their chasing to scold the feral cat—a Two Minutes’ Hate. In the corner of my eye, the zip of a winter wren.
April 22, 2011
The sun glows faintly through the clouds like a coin at the bottom of a fountain. Three flickers bicker above the springhouse.
April 21, 2011
Even the invaders’ spring is late: barberry, lilac, multiflora rose just now leafing out, the hated myrtle purpling what used to be a lawn.
April 20, 2011
Where the moon had glowed through ground fog at 4:00, now the sun glimmers. Four ruby-crowned kinglets flutter in and out of the lilac.
April 19, 2011
An accelerated tapping on the roof—who ordered rain? One bird says Konkerlee, another, Drink your tea. Takes me a second to sort them out.
April 18, 2011
The thin forsythia at the woods’ edge is in bloom at last. Two towhees battle over territory: rival renditions of the same six-note trill.
April 17, 2011
The rain’s stopped, and high winds rearrange the clouds, holes opening and closing as if in a game of chance: guess which one hides the sun.
April 16, 2011
A morning so dark, the spring peepers call between showers. At the wood’s edge, slow as a dream, a blue-headed vireo repeats its only line.
April 15, 2011
Morning full of the cries of woodpeckers—part ululation, part rusty hinge. Like the sounds the trees make in a winter wind, speeded up.
April 14, 2011
Sun! The gobbling of a turkey on the far side of the field, echoing off the ridge, sounds as if it’s coming from the clear blue sky.