Milk-white sky and the white noise of tree crickets. A pileated woodpecker cackles to herself at the top of a tall locust.
crickets
Thursday September 23, 2021
The first full day of astronomical autumn dawns to downpour. A cricket in the garden scrapes out a last few, scattered notes.
Wednesday September 01, 2021
Rain thickens toward mid-morning as the ex-hurricane moves through. One cricket still calls from the shelter of peony leaves.
Monday August 23, 2021
The meadow and its crickets. The full moon emerges from the clouds upside-down in every drop of dew.
Wednesday August 18, 2021
Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.
Wednesday September 16, 2020
Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.
Thursday September 27, 2018
Overcast and cool. Birds only call at intervals now. Crickets’ chirps are as small and repetitive as the blossoms on the white heath aster.
Saturday September 22, 2018
White sky, bleary sun. Cold air, hot coffee. That equinoctial balance. Crickets trill, chipmunks tick, aspen leaves flip back and forth.
Friday September 14, 2018
The dampness thickens into drizzle. Its soundtrack: the unending trill of tree crickets. The forest begins to glisten like a salamander.
Monday October 02, 2017
Another cold, clear morning. When the jays and squirrels stop yammering, the silence seems unusually thick. Then it hits me: no crickets.
Thursday September 14, 2017
Small birds flit through the tops of the locust trees—migrating warblers, no doubt. Birds of passage. Every now and then the cricket pauses.
Tuesday September 13, 2016
A catbird calls so incessantly I begin to doubt it’s a catbird until it flies past. You can’t hear the ocean here but we have tree crickets.
Saturday August 06, 2016
Hard rain for less than a minute followed by an hour of dripping, accompanied by a cricket chorus. Pale soapwort flowers glow in the sun.
Wednesday August 03, 2016
Overcast and cool. The irregular chirps of a cricket in the tall grass. A Canada goose flying over the ridge all alone honks twice.