Cool with a clearing sky at sunrise. A blue-headed vireo’s soliloquy. The smell of damp earth.
A heavy white sky giving few hints of sunrise. In the distance, the faint bells of a wood thrush. A field sparrow’s accelerating rush toward silence.
Just past sunrise, a vagrant red squirrel appears in the yard, given away at first by her nervous, jerky movements as she forages for breakfast, then the old-barn color as she emerges from the lilac’s shadow, head swiveling about.
The bridal wreath bush that persists in the shadow of the old lilac is in bloom—the only time of year I remember its existence. From just above it come the buzzy notes of a black-throated green warbler. The sky turns white.
In the last few minutes before the sun crests the ridge, ghosts lingering among the trees turn back into blossoming shadbush. A chickadee is singing his spring song.
A still morning after last night’s violent storms. The tulip trees have burst their buds—a pale green haze. A few high clouds in the east turn purple.
Still and crystal-clear at sunrise. A couple of whines from a hen turkey conjure up a gobble from the ridgetop. The blue-headed vireo’s soliloquy.
The trees still sway after their all-night rave with the wind. The tall serviceberry at the woods’ edge is in bloom: pale foam against heavy, gray clouds.
Wind throbs in the treetops; the birdcall app thinks it’s a drumming grouse. Juncos twitter from the lilac, which has just burst its buds—a green apparition against the brown woods.
Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.
Rainy and cool. An eastern towhee is urging me—according to the time-honored birders’ mnemonic—to drink my tea, while woodpeckers large and small bang their heads against the trees.
In the half-light, a Louisiana waterthrush’s jumble of notes. The sky is nearly clear. Peonies are raising red hands out of the earth.
From up in the field, a hen turkey’s plaintive rasp conjures up a tom—that tumble of notes. The briefest blaze of sun between the clouds.
Crystal-clear at sunrise. Every morning more yellow—daffodils, spicebush. Leftover from winter, the bone-white branches of tulip poplar that squirrels have stripped to line their dreys.