Cold and still. The mid-morning sun is a faint smudge in the treetops. A flicker flutters into a barberry bush and begins to gorge.
clouds
December 8, 2022
A late-morning brightness in the clouds. A white-breasted nuthatch descending a tall black locust turns right-side-up.
November 29, 2022
Heavily overcast at sunrise; only the ground glows a faint pink, thick with rain-slick leaves. A screech owl trills.
November 28, 2022
Mostly overcast and quiet, apart from the wind. A squirrel with an acorn in her mouth pauses for a split second at the end of a branch, then leaps.
November 27, 2022
Overcast; the smell of rain. Cattail leaves rattle faintly. A few tiny patches of snow linger in the tall grass.
November 20, 2022
As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.
November 14, 2022
Heavy cloud cover. A gray squirrel chiseling open a walnut squats on a low branch with its tail curled over its head for warmth.
November 13, 2022
Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese.
November 5, 2022
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
November 2, 2022
Sun through a scrim of cloud. From within a flame-leaved barberry bush, the crisp ticking of a junco.
November 1, 2022
Clouds selectively erasing the stars at dawn. A strong inversion layer: traffic noise from the interstate mingles with barred owl calls.
October 28, 2022
Cold and mostly overcast, but the rising sun strikes my face a full hour earlier due to overnight thinning of the leaves.
October 27, 2022
Dawn. Clouds glow with the lights from town. The great bulk of the lilac against the dark woods, trembling in the wind.
October 26, 2022
Heavily overcast and quiet at dawn. A low surf of crickets. From the spruce grove a half mile away, a barred owl’s hoo-aw.