Up for moonset and sunrise—both hidden by clouds. The dark yard, punctuated by the apostrophes of top-heading garlic, has a crow for a rooster.
clouds
Overcast and cool. Buzzing and squeaking, a ruby-throated hummingbird circles a red bandanna hung out to dry.
Breezy and cool, with the sun guttering in cirrus. Over the course of an hour, I swat an astonishing diversity of small flies and gnats. It’s good to feel wanted, I suppose.
Everything wet and shining as the clouds move out. A towhee flies up to a low limb and rubs the caterpillar in his bill against the bark to remove its bristles.
A lurid sun glimmers through high-altitude haze. Somewhere in the deep grass a hen turkey calls to her poults, as goldfinches party it up in the treetops.
Cold and crystal-clear, before the high-altitude smog from the burning forests of Canada shows up. On the end of a walnut limb, chipping sparrows are mating and foraging with their usual enthusiasm.
Sun through thin clouds and a cold breeze. A hummingbird buzzes in and circles the spot where a hummingbird feeder last hung four years ago.
A few clouds disappearing into deep blue on a morning so clear, I feel even I could do the gnatcatcher’s job and find each drifting speck of nutriment.
Overcast and cool. As the wood thrush fades in the distance, the brown thrasher parodies his song. Waxwings whistle in the treetops. The sun almost comes out.
A cold wind with thin clouds admitting a semblance of sunlight. The red-eyed vireo recites his refrain as doggedly as ever, not to be outdone by a downy woodpecker’s fast fills.
Mostly cloudy with a cold wind. Several ravens are having a noisy conclave in the treetops, their high, harsh vocals bringing in a pair of crows, who offer commentary from a safe distance.
In warbler season, even the wheezing of the wind seems open for interpretation: green-winged or oak-throated? The sky is achingly clear between the clouds.
A clearing wind. The wood thrush comes into the yard to sing as blue sky appears. The aspen I planted last year is already big enough to mime applause.
A few clouds at sunrise. Goldfinches chatter over the rap battles of ovenbirds and vireos. Bracken leaves are still opening in the yard—feathers on feathers.