Clear and still. A flicker’s eponymous chant from the sunlit crown of a black locust. The black raspberries in my yard are already blood-red.
black locust
A warm breeze at sunrise. My reading is interrupted by an unfamiliar trill: a redheaded woodpecker in the dead crown of the tallest black locust. I watch through binoculars as he works over the tree and himself, probing under bark one moment and under his wing the next.
Another clear, cold morning with little dew. Goldfinches gad about in the tops of the locusts, seemingly oblivious to other birds’ territorial obsessions.
Hen turkey calling at sunrise like a rusty machine pleading for oil, the tom interrupting with his usual non sequitur. A squirrel noses the stump of a freshly felled locust.
High clouds yellow with sunrise appear to have some business off to the east. A downy woodpecker on a dead locust limb fires off a blast beat.
A late-morning brightness in the clouds. A white-breasted nuthatch descending a tall black locust turns right-side-up.
Thin fog at sunrise. A pileated woodpecker lands on the side of a tall locust tree and gets bum-rushed by a squirrel.
Milk-white sky and the white noise of tree crickets. A pileated woodpecker cackles to herself at the top of a tall locust.
It’s actually cold—54F/12C! A crow at the top of the tallest locust where the sun strikes has one thing to say and she is saying it.
Cold and clear. Three waxwings join the sun high in the dead crown of a black locust, yellow bellies aglow.
Clear everywhere except where the sun rises pink, orange and yellow, heralded by small woodpeckers with loud, locust-wood drums.
Overcast and cold. A chickadee foraging at the woods’ edge sings his fee-bee song. A sudden scrabbling of squirrel claws on locust bark.
Walnut leaves have begun to yellow, as leaf miners turn the locust trees brown. A red-eyed vireo warbles on and on.
Mid-morning and it’s already hot. The black locusts—last to leaf out—have a fresh green fuzz. A carpenter bee inspects the roof.