White sky with distant crows. The stiltgrass in the meadow is still lying low after a thunderstorm yesterday at dusk.
clouds
Heavily overcast and still, as if it’s going to rain at any moment. The usual birds saying the usual things. The deep-summer hegemony of green.
The sun rising through high-altitude murk isn’t much brighter than the goldfinches chattering in the treetops, less than three hours till the solstice.
Sun through thin clouds. A silent crow skims the treetops where a cuckoo coos. Someone’s offsprings beg for more breakfast.
A bleary, bloodshot sun in an ash-white sky. Pileated woodpeckers foraging just inside the woods’ edge cackle like sacred clowns.
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.
High-altitude murk gives the low-angled light a timeless feel. It’s barely above freezing, but the birds still sound ecstatic. Tennessee or Blackburnian warbler? That accelerating buzz…
High atmospheric haze from distant forest fires makes for a murky sunrise. An oriole fresh from the tropics sings as brightly as ever from the top of the tallest tree.
Is it clear or clouded over? A gibbous moon turning pink above the ridge provides the answer. The great-crested flycatcher wakes up.
Dawn. Strips of cloud redden like a ladder of blood. But for sheer augury, nothing can top a blossoming hawthorn at the forest edge issuing a torrent of wood thrush song.
Cold and half-clear for a red sunrise. The stream is still quiet—more raininess than actual rain. From off in the distance, a wood thrush’s ethereal trill.
Cold and clear aside from some high-atmosphere haze, which gives the light a timeless feel as the sun climbs through a hillside of flowering oaks.
A lull in the morning chorus. Contrails of all ages litter the sky like a boneyard. A woodpecker’s fast rattle.
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.