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.
cardinal
March 3, 2023
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…
February 6, 2023
Dull gray clouds since well before sunrise, but the cardinal is an engine of cheer. It’s two degrees above freezing. Anything could happen.
January 20, 2023
Overcast with short-lived bright patches in the clouds. A cardinal sings a few notes at the time indicated for sunrise. Then it’s back to the sound of the wind.
November 7, 2022
Clear and cooler. A female cardinal flies out of a barberry bush, her bill red as the berries. Crows argue over fresh additions to the compost.
April 23, 2022
A 30-second rain. I count nine shades of green, all circled by a cardinal in his flame-colored cap. The daffodils once again stand erect.
March 14, 2022
Sunrise reddens the western ridge and its whine of traffic. Cardinal song. With my last sip of tea, the sun strikes my face.
March 10, 2022
Yesterday’s snow glitters between the shadows of trees. To the winter-long harangues of cardinal, titmouse and Carolina wren, add one phoebe.
March 5, 2022
A leaden sky at sunrise, but an hour later, the sun glimmers through thinning clouds. Cardinal and titmouse song. The smell of bare dirt.
August 28, 2021
The fog slowly lifts, except where it’s been trapped by funnel spider webs. The cardinal’s cheer seems a bit misplaced.
August 20, 2021
Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.
August 17, 2021
Sunrise hidden by clouds. Towhee and cardinal’s usual soliloquies. A mosquito sings her need into my ear.
June 10, 2021
Downpour. An ant abandons its dead caterpillar. An earthworm dangles from a cardinal’s bill.
April 26, 2021
The brassy singers of open spaces take it in turns: robin, cardinal, towhee. But I am ready for shade and the whispery songs of warblers.