Clearing enough by 8:00 for the sun to nest in the treetops. Highway noise subsides, giving way to the knocks and clatter of falling walnuts and acorns, the scold-calls of chipmunks, the jeers of jays.
chipmunks
September 11, 2023
Still overcast, but with a bit of a breeze. From the woods’ edge, the chick-burr call of a scarlet tanager. A chipmunk’s incessant metronome.
June 5, 2023
Cool with thin clouds. Two wood thrushes fly into the woods, dead grass trailing from the leader’s beak. A chipmunk runs under my chair.
February 27, 2023
Sun through thin clouds; a quiet morning. Three chipmunks, one after another, cross the yard and go under my porch. Either someone’s in heat, or they’re plotting to overthrow me.
February 23, 2023
Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging cheeks.
February 18, 2023
Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
October 22, 2022
Clear and still. I watch the sun inch through the half-turned canopies of the oaks. A chipmunk begins his morning chant.
October 12, 2022
Slightly warmer. Alarmed chipmunks go in and out of sync. The slow hegemony of clouds.
October 11, 2022
Sun in the treetops and a small flock of migrants just below, catching some breakfast. A chipmunk’s motor slowly runs out of putts.
September 12, 2022
Fog rising into the treetops. The garden chipmunk keeps me company, sitting on the end of the wall, scratching his belly.
September 5, 2022
Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
June 13, 2022
An odor from my childhood: the humid oak forest of my grandparents’ South Jersey yard. A chipmunk dashes under my chair.
May 15, 2022
A Louisiana waterthrush declaims from a walnut tree, bobbing up and down as is its wont. Up in the woods, a chipmunk ticks like a too-fast clock.
February 28, 2022
Deep blue sky. It’s quiet. A chipmunk dashes across the icy snowpack as I catch up on news of the war.