Clear and cool. A deer snorts alarm up in the woods. A female cardinal picks a black raspberry on her way through my yard.
cardinal
Dawn passes too quickly; already the cardinal is attacking his image in the window. Three moth wings rest on the arm of my chair.
Night and day overlap as the moon rises through the trees, serenaded by a family of barred owls, while the first song sparrow and cardinal herald the dawn. Then the whip-poor-will begins to shriek.
Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.
Dark and overcast at dawn. The creek has subsided—a hubbub rather than a roar. The cardinal who roosts in the red cedar next to the house calls once at 6:03 and goes back to sleep.
Red spreading from the clouds to the western ridge. Robin, cardinal, phoebe: the early-spring trio, joined by a downy woodpecker on percussion with a high-pitched dead limb.
Clear and cold as the moon’s searchlight sinks through ridgetop trees. Dawn stains the east. The cardinal wakes up, full of cheer.
Dripping at dawn has thickened into steady rain by the time I get out of the shower. The robins, cardinals, woodpeckers and wrens seem barely to have noticed. It’s spring.
Red dawn with a moon like a searchlight sinking into the powerline cut. The cardinal debuts a new call with what sounds like a glottal stop in the middle: chee-er, chee-er.
Cold and mostly clear at sunrise. Long before the sun clears the ridge, the bright red cardinal is tapping at all my windows.
Meltwater roars in the creek. In the orange glow of sunrise, the cardinals emerge from the juniper tree, singing.
Still and cold at dawn. A cardinal sings once in the moonlight and goes back to sleep for ten minutes. A small cloud turns to rust.
With a storm on the way, the sun is a bright smear in a field of white. Still the normal early-spring soundtrack: cardinal, nuthatch, junco, crow, plane, train…
Dull gray clouds since well before sunrise, but the cardinal is an engine of cheer. It’s two degrees above freezing. Anything could happen.