Rusty things: the wail of a cat in heat, a squirrel’s slow scold, the cry of a jay, and the black cherry leaves fading to a coppery red.
At the woods’ edge, the yellowest birch seethes with small birds—kinglets, I think. But by the time I fetch binoculars, the tree is still.
A series of high-pitched snorts from a deer up on the ridge. Coyote? Bear? Or—imagine the horror for an herbivore—an attack of hay fever?
A low cloud ceiling imposes gloom and silence, save for the closest chirps. A nuthatch, normally querulous, sounds downright neurotic.
The walnut trees are already losing their leaves, turning into grotesquely well-hung skeletons a-tremble with squirrels.
A meadow vole takes an after-death journey into the forest in the jaws of a cat, who holds her head high for once and does not slink.
A morning so clear, the half moon looks close enough to touch. A squirrel still spooked by some long-gone predator has yelled itself hoarse.
The guys arrive promptly at 8:00 o’clock to put a new roof on the porch. We stand around talking for 20 minutes about lead-core bullets.
Coldest morning of the month so far. I notice that each limb of the dead cherry is growing a shaggy coat of turkey-tail fungus.
Watching night turn to day—a thing that should be gradual, but instead proceeds by small leaps of realization: “It’s lighter now!” Rain.
Many of the asters that shut their purple lashes for the night have yet to open, frustrating a honeybee. A squat native bee pushes right in.
As so often in fall, a clear morning sky means not clarity but inversion—the bellowing of trucks. A yellow leaf lands with a soft click.
No matter how late I rise, the light still has that early-morning look—as today at 9:00, pooling golden at the entrance to the woods.
How to describe a monarch butterfly’s flight? Too straight for “flutter,” too erratic for “soar.” And this one—why is it heading north?