Red spreading from the clouds to the western ridge. Robin, cardinal, phoebe: the early-spring trio, joined by a downy woodpecker on percussion with a high-pitched dead limb.
Another clear, cold morning. Two mourning doves call back and forth, occasionally overlapping, as the sunlight inches down toward their perches.
Clear and cold as the moon’s searchlight sinks through ridgetop trees. Dawn stains the east. The cardinal wakes up, full of cheer.
Rain and fog. The birds call one at a time, as if auditioning. A sodden squirrel, grayer than gray, trots across the gray gravel road.
Cold and still. The rising sun shines straight down the old woods road to illuminate the whitewashed springhouse, just three days past the equinox.
Unseasonably cold, with the sun so bright and air so clear, the few clouds seem lost, like guests at the wrong party. Leathery old mountain laurel leaves look fresh and new.
Heavily overcast at mid-morning. I watch a squirrel surveying the yard from atop a stump, then loping over and retrieving a husked walnut from a tuft of grass.
Four hours before the equinox, the ground is white, with more snow swirling down. The miniature daffodils dangle from their stalks like deflated balloons.
Blue above the cloud bank blocking the sunrise. At the woods’ edge, white-breasted nuthatches are having a free and frank exchange of views.
Patches of blue. The mourning dove’s incessant cooing finally comes to an end, leaving the daffodils’ ensemble of horns to their silence.
The sun finally clears the one, thin cloud above the horizon only to disappear into a thicket. The robin has taken a break, so the titmouse holds forth.
A gray cloud ceiling brightens toward the horizon. A phoebe stridently announces himself to the echoey hillside and the daffodils trembling in the breeze.
Bright blear of a sun in a sky more white than blue. Its light reflecting off the window behind me means I am lit on all sides as I peer down at the first, miniature daffodils still in shade.
Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.