Thin fog at dawn. From the woods’ edge, the familiar two-syllable call of a scarlet tanager sounds suddenly very much like goodbye.
September 3, 2009
Focused on the view, I never noticed how the porch posts framing it lean several degrees to the right. I wonder if my hearing also is askew?
September 2, 2009
Ah, the inversion layers of autumn! A hummingbird materializes in front of me, her approach covered by the din, and studies my bright shirt.
September 1, 2009
Cold and clear, but one cricket still manages a slow creak. A nuthatch calls heh-heh-heh — so I didn’t dream that cackle outside my window!
August 31, 2009
The low-frequency hum of a passing jet vibrates the windows and the ladder’s metal rungs. A wren chatters alarm at the missing floorboards.
August 30, 2009
A squirrel emerges from the springhouse’s tiny attic vent and slides head-first toward the ground. A patch of sun shimmers in the goldenrod.
August 29, 2009
I glimpse the mother doe and her fawns running just inside the woods’ edge, hear the clatter of hooves going past. A minute of almost-sun.
August 28, 2009
Another overcast morning, with wind and the sound of trucks out of the east. Two thrushes and a gnatcatcher move silently through the lilac.
August 27, 2009
The low cloud ceiling is a tabula rasa for the arabesques of chimney swifts. A high-pitched rasping in the trees–some insomniac katydid.
August 26, 2009
In the light breeze, one clump of cattails waves out of sync; the sound of chewing. A few perfunctory phrases from a red-eyed vireo.
August 25, 2009
Out around 9:00, in time to hear the dog-day cicadas start up. If it weren’t for cicadas, how would we know what the sun sounds like?
August 24, 2009
A bristly white caterpillar on the freshly painted white porch railing. The sky too is white, and the lawn with its banks of snakeroot.
August 23, 2009
Halfway up the ridge, the hectoring alarm-calls of a squirrel. A few seconds later, a deer joins in: explosive snorts. The sun comes out.
August 22, 2009
Below the porch, a generic chirp from a warbler of indeterminate species. I remember the Central American term for such skulkers: chipes.