-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.
Canada geese
11/13/2022
Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese.
9/23/2022
Windy and cold (40F/5C). A sudden outpouring of Canada goose music. The sun comes out from behind the only cloud.
4/11/2022
Clear at sunrise but with enough high-altitude murk to turn the western ridge red. A lone goose flies over, honking.
11/22/2021
Tundra swans just below the clouds heading east over the house, their ethereal flutes. Three minutes later, a south-bound flock of geese.
10/28/2021
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.
2/26/2021
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.
11/12/2020
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.
10/13/2020
Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.
10/9/2020
Clear and still. I notice with some sadness that the goldenrod meadow has faded. A large, loud V of geese goes over, heading north.
10/5/2020
Low cloud ceiling. Three flocks of resident Canada geese go over the house, one after another, in formations as disorderly as their cries.
2/24/2020
Scattered honks from an unseen traffic of geese above the clouds. It’s warm. The mourning doves are finishing each other’s sentences.
2/2/2020
A fresh half-inch of snow: the pleasantly arrhythmic dripping of meltwater on the porch roof. Three Vs of geese go fluting overhead.
1/28/2020
Back from the south to cold air, to old snow sagged and wrinkled. Mingling with traffic noise, the voices of non-migratory geese.