A small buck stalks past, his six-point rack held high, minutes before the sun tops the ridge. I can see some cold-weather gnats at the woods’ edge pogoing in the sunbeam. A bluebird up by the barn calls and calls.
bluebird
A rare low-humidity morning begins with crows heralding the sunrise and a screech owl trilling in the distance. Yellow clouds fade to white. A bluebird begins warbling as I open my laptop.
Cool and clear, with bluebird and cardinal song. The leaves of the tulip tree sapling in my yard are nearly white with dew. I grease my boots.
Breezy and cool. The sun glimmers through thin clouds, prompting a Linne’s cicada to call—that stuttering buzz. A bluebird sings up by the shed.
Crystal-clear sunrise, with a bluebird warbling by the barn. A downy woodpecker at the woods’ edge has found the perfect tenor-tuned snag to rattle, in response to a distant pileated woodpecker’s thunder.
A damp, gray dawn sweetened by the calls of field sparrows and a bluebird up by the barn. A small shower passes through the woods, rustling like a millipede in the dead leaves.
The sun finally clears the trees at 9:00. A bluebird and a phoebe call back and forth in the yard, an ovenbird and a red-eyed vireo talk over each other in the woods, and in the valley, traffic, a tractor, a train.
Sun almost shining through the fog. A winter wren warbles from the marsh. Up by the garage, bluebirds. It feels like March, with December light.
Thick fog and silence. A song sparrow pipes up just before sunrise. It gets darker again. A bluebird warbles as the rain resumes.
A few degrees above freezing, heavily overcast, and dead quiet apart from the spring’s low gurgle. A bluebird sings two notes and lapses back into silence.
Daffodils are out of the ground around the old dog statue, the surrounding yard moldy-looking from the light frost. A distant bluebird.
Warm rain. The snow has shrunk to a few scrofulous patches in the woods. Half an hour before sunrise, a bluebird is singing.
The waxy surfaces of laurel and rhododendron leaves glitter in the sun. A bluebird sits silently on a branch, waiting for insects to stir.
It’s humid. A bluebird sings up by the garage, and in the woods, a black-throated green warbler. The first tiger swallowtail flutters past.