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.
cardinal
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sunrise reddens the western ridge and its whine of traffic. Cardinal song. With my last sip of tea, the sun strikes my face.
Yesterday’s snow glitters between the shadows of trees. To the winter-long harangues of cardinal, titmouse and Carolina wren, add one phoebe.
A leaden sky at sunrise, but an hour later, the sun glimmers through thinning clouds. Cardinal and titmouse song. The smell of bare dirt.
The fog slowly lifts, except where it’s been trapped by funnel spider webs. The cardinal’s cheer seems a bit misplaced.
Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.