Cool and quiet at sunrise. A hummingbird circles the space where a nectar feeder hung years ago. A black cherry tree at the woods’ edge is turning orange.
black cherry
May 14, 2024
A break in the clouds allows a bit of sunrise to stain the treetops, where a noisy kestrel gets dive-bombed by a robin. A pair of black cherry trees are in bloom—white snouts pointing in all directions.
August 27, 2022
Under a clearing sky, nuthatch and vireo still claim and declaim. A black cherry tree, having dispensed its fruit, is turning a dull orange.
May 24, 2022
Heavily overcast and cool. The black cherry trees at the woods’ edge point the fingers of their inflorescences in every direction but down.
September 21, 2021
Under a thinning white sky, the thinning crown of a black cherry tree already less green than salmon. The sunflowers face every direction.
May 22, 2021
The black cherry blossoms are already fading, and the sun is going from dandelion-yellow to dandelion seedhead-white. Black-billed cuckoo.
May 21, 2021
Cool morning. The melancholy sweetness of a wood thrush song. At the woods’ edge, the small black cherry has gone to bloom.
April 18, 2021
In bright sun, the tulip poplar’s green torch beside a black cherry’s cloud of tiny pink leaves.
October 24, 2020
Overcast and chilly, with enough of a breeze to make the salmon-colored cherry leaves shiver against an increasingly gray backdrop of woods.
June 3, 2020
Thunderstorm just past, many leaves on the maple and black cherry trees remain upside-down, like pale, open palms turned toward the sky.
July 18, 2016
Two chipmunks eating unripe drupes high in a black cherry tree suspend their usual hostilities. One jumps over the other when they meet.
June 8, 2016
Wind salted with rain. A male indigo bunting clings to a black cherry branch like the one blue leaf, fluttering with the rest.
June 2, 2016
In a lull between showers, the sideways shimmy of birch and black cherry leaves. One of the neighbors’ hens begins to screech.
April 28, 2016
Cold drizzle. A brown thrasher improvises at the woods’ edge, and I spot the first tent caterpillar web—a tiny white flag in a wild cherry.