Walnut leaves have begun to yellow, as leaf miners turn the locust trees brown. A red-eyed vireo warbles on and on.
black walnut
August 7, 2021
Cool and humid. An Acadian flycatcher gathers breakfast from the leaves of a walnut sapling. Sleep still tugs at my eyelids.
July 24, 2021
Mid-morning, and a wood thrush lands in the walnut tree next to the driveway to sing a few bars. A net-winged beetle flies past.
July 21, 2021
A few drops of rain. A gnatcatcher fluttering up from the weeds to a walnut tree swerves to—I assume—catch a gnat.
July 5, 2021
The first bergamots are in bloom, next to the first soapwort. In walnut-tree shade, the permanent shadow of a common yellowthroat’s mask.
June 11, 2021
Overcast and cool. A titmouse appears to have developed a taste for caterpillars, circling the trunk of a walnut like a nuthatch.
May 26, 2021
A mid-air tangle between a phoebe and a wood pewee ends with the latter calling once from a walnut branch and flying back into the woods.
March 23, 2021
The last patch of snow is sinking into the earth. A titmouse flits from branch to branch up a walnut sapling, whistling softly to himself.
November 18, 2020
Overcast and cold. A squirrel is picking up fallen black walnuts, removing their rotten husks, and burying them in the half-frozen yard.
October 21, 2020
Out at first light. Venus is visible through the thin fog, slowly fading until I lose it in the already-bare branches of a walnut tree.
October 17, 2020
As the rising sun glimmers through the trees, birch and walnut leaves begin to fall, the first hard frost glittering on the ground.
October 11, 2020
I am mentally marking walnut saplings for removal when they fill with migrants: yellow-rumped and palm warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet.
October 8, 2020
A classic October morning, bright and crisp. The black cat slinks down the driveway, stepping between the fat fallen walnuts.
October 2, 2020
Walnuts crash down on the back roof. A raven comes croaking over the house, then returns a minute later, silent except for its wingbeats.