Such a startling and ridiculous sound, the turkey’s gobble—like gargling with marbles. And then a blue-headed vireo’s quiet soliloquy.
April 2, 2010
Sunrise, and a red-winged blackbird calls twice: sound like a blood-shot sun half-submerged in dark feathers, part trill, part gurgle.
April 1, 2010
The springhouse phoebe has a mate. He sings from the crabapple while she flutters under the eaves, bill thrusting into the old nest.
March 31, 2010
Clear, clear, clear: say the same thing often enough, the cardinal knows, and one day you’ll be right. The east is red with maple blossoms.
March 30, 2010
My dial thermometer’s big red arrow says just above freezing; its shadow says just below. And in the glass, bare trees, clouds flying south.
March 29, 2010
When the sun finally breaches the fog, the forest drips with jewels. In the yard, the first native wildflower opens its pin-sized blooms.
March 28, 2010
Overcast and cold. Ten feet up the trunk of the big maple, a fox squirrel drinks sap from a slit the woodpeckers have widened.
March 27, 2010
The sun blazes through naked trees still six weeks from leaf-out. Three vultures wheel, flapping to stay aloft in the frigid air.
March 26, 2010
It’s cold. The first two miniature daffodils are open, and stand among the crowd of upright buds with their heads bowed toward the earth.
March 25, 2010
I watch it grow light, then start to grow dark again. A rustle in the leaves that starts as the footfalls of deer turns to rain.
March 24, 2010
A cloudless morning, and cold, but the field sparrow who just returned yesterday is trying to get something started with his rush of notes.
March 23, 2010
The last patch of snow vanished in the night, leaving only the fuzzy erasers of pussy willow to remind us of the purity of the blank page.
March 22, 2010
Rain from what must be thin clouds. The sunrise glow lights up a deer at the wood’s edge, bright as litter against the brown leaves.
March 21, 2010
The song sparrow sings at first light—just once, like an alarm going off. Then nothing but the creek’s quiet conversation for 20 minutes.