Thin fog. Now that the phoebes have left, their shy cousins the pewees have come out of the woods, and herald each sunrise in a slow drawl.
Overcast and cool. Two birds of indeterminate species trade high-pitched chirps in the treetops, continuing for hours. A few crickets.
A mosquito creeps across my shirt, an inchworm measures my jeans, and a hummingbird circles my head: this morning, I’m doomed to disappoint.
A yellow mayfly struggles to cross the desert of my porch floor. I glance over at the streambank: yellow coneflowers, the first goldenrod.
Just before dawn, the creak of a tree in the woods, and then in the yard. A bindweed in the garden aims its white blunderbuss at the moon.
First morning of a predicted heat wave: leaves turn backwards in a warm wind. A cardinal sings “purty purty purty” in a Southern accent.
Gone is the persistent “tweet?” of the breeding season: at first light, the towhee’s call falls like a declarative, flat and final.
An autumnal morning. Two months late, the last dame’s-rocket bends out over the driveway, purple plus signs weighted down with dew.
Everywhere a house wren burbles you can build a window; everywhere a tree cricket trills you can build a memorial to last night’s moon.
Goldenrod in front of the porch now overtops the floor, like the crest of a green wave rolling in from the yard. I prop my feet on the rail.
Sunday morning rain is different; it’s quieter. The distant rumble I take at first for traffic on the interstate turns out to be thunder.
I watch a yellow black walnut leaf flutter to the ground. Autumn’s in the air. Fog persists most of the morning, lit up from above.