A cricket in the wall chirps more quickly now that the sun is on it. I sneeze and he falls silent. A great spangled fritillary careens past.
crickets
September 27, 2015
Two crickets are having a singing contest among the stiltgrass, which is now quite red and swept back in one direction as if with a comb.
September 13, 2015
Windy and cool; the sun goes in and out. A flock of wild geese—their raucous cries. In the silence that follows, a tree cricket’s trill.
August 31, 2015
In the course of an hour, the only bird calls are from a couple of crows. But there are four kinds of crickets, a cicada, a distant jet.
August 25, 2015
Clear and cool. Falling walnut leaves spin through the deep shadows at the edge of the woods. Above the crickets, a distant motorcycle.
August 15, 2015
Hazy and warm. As the sun climbs, the cicada chorus grows, and the field cricket in the garden chirps faster and faster.
August 12, 2015
Cloudy and cool. Cricket trills and ticks are joined by chipmunk tocks. A tulip tree leaf sails in wide circles with its stem for a rudder.
August 6, 2015
Too warm for a coat, too cool for a t-shirt. And in the grass weighted down with dew, the murmur of crickets. It feels like autumn.
June 22, 2015
Sunrise, and the cricket music is augmented by a trio of chipping sparrows, the fledgling begging for food while its parents mate.
August 20, 2014
Overcast and humid. A Carolina wren trills in short bursts, as if in imitation of the crickets creaking in the long grass.
October 2, 2013
Sunny, warm, and quiet except for the distant wail of a locomotive, a phoebe calling at the woods’ edge, a cricket, the rustling of leaves.
August 31, 2013
In the half-light of dawn, white snakeroot glowing in the meadow, the unending shhhhh of tree crickets, clatter of a squirrel venturing out.
August 19, 2013
Back from London, my ears are still adjusting to the country. The unending insect thrum seems to come from some city hidden in the grass.
September 14, 2012
We don’t hear much from the highway these days. What I hear: Canada geese off to the north, a train whistle, two kinds of crickets.