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.
clouds
5/18/2023
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…
5/11/2023
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.
5/10/2023
Is it clear or clouded over? A gibbous moon turning pink above the ridge provides the answer. The great-crested flycatcher wakes up.
5/7/2023
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.
5/1/2023
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.
4/26/2023
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.
4/14/2023
A lull in the morning chorus. Contrails of all ages litter the sky like a boneyard. A woodpecker’s fast rattle.
4/8/2023
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.
4/7/2023
A small flock of white-breasted nuthatches appears at the woods’ edge, singing and zipping around, just as the sun is fading into gray clouds.
3/31/2023
Gray and still. A robin sings softly for a change. Two whitetails below my mother’s back porch bound up the hillside and out of sight.
3/26/2023
Robins have joined the dawn chorus to dramatic effect; the hollow’s echo chamber throbs with birdsong. The first vulture of the day soars past a pink-bellied cloud.
3/19/2023
A dozen dead leaves circle the yard as the clouds’ bellies turn orange. A phoebe calls once, sotto voce, from a branch above the creek.
3/18/2023
The sun guttering below a lid of utility-gray cloud illuminates a small flotilla of snowflakes. It’s quiet apart from one, highly excited wren.