Half an hour before dawn, the deep Christmas silence is broken by the bugling of a Canada goose, flying alone under the low clouds.
Canada geese
December 6, 2024
Windy and cold, with gray squirrels leaping through the treetops. Half an hour past sunrise, the distant bugles of Canada geese draw my attention to a patch of blue sky.
October 25, 2023
A dozen geese come honking over the house, interrupting three crows sharing their excitement over a venison gut pile up in the woods.
September 30, 2023
A clearing sky. with traffic sound out of the east. Six geese coming flapping low over the trees, honking like lost Volvos.
August 20, 2023
Another autumnal dawn. A screech owl trills from just inside the woods. Crows head past en route to an angry mob. The fluting of geese.
February 4, 2023
-14C at dawn and very still. A sound like a rifle shot as some tree’s heartwood splits open. Two distant bugle notes from a Canada goose.
November 13, 2022
Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese.
September 23, 2022
Windy and cold (40F/5C). A sudden outpouring of Canada goose music. The sun comes out from behind the only cloud.
April 11, 2022
Clear at sunrise but with enough high-altitude murk to turn the western ridge red. A lone goose flies over, honking.
November 22, 2021
Tundra swans just below the clouds heading east over the house, their ethereal flutes. Three minutes later, a south-bound flock of geese.
October 28, 2021
Mercury rises just as the stars begin to fade. A jet flies under it. A lone goose flies over it. I look away and lose it in the dawn sky.
February 26, 2021
A red-tailed hawk dives at a squirrel just as I come out. Then woodwinds: a V of geese followed by tundra swans. The first killdeer’s cry.
November 12, 2020
The oaks are twice as naked as they were yesterday. From above the clouds, a single clarinet note that might or might not be a Canada goose.
October 13, 2020
Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.