At last the garden cricket has a rival. They creak slowly back and forth. I scan the western sky for what’s left of last night’s moon.
crickets
One tulip tree limb is a-quiver: a pair of squirrels nibble on each other’s fur. Love or parasites? A cricket calls from under the bergamot.
Sitting under the portico while the paint dries on the porch. The crickets sound different here. A phoebe calls for the first time in weeks.
Cold and clear, but one cricket still manages a slow creak. A nuthatch calls heh-heh-heh — so I didn’t dream that cackle outside my window!
The fog reveals as much as it hides. Who knew the trees held so many spiderwebs? The birds are mostly quiet now; it’s cricket spring.
Overcast and cool. Two birds of indeterminate species trade high-pitched chirps in the treetops, continuing for hours. A few crickets.
Everywhere a house wren burbles you can build a window; everywhere a tree cricket trills you can build a memorial to last night’s moon.
In the pre-dawn dark, a patch of moonlight appears for a few seconds on the end of the porch. A cricket’s one-string fiddle, slow and thin.
A warm night. With no inversion layer, dawn comes quietly except for the ever-present crickets. A patter of rain approaches and retreats.
Hundreds of miles to the southeast, a hurricane churns. I sit in the dark listening to scattered rain, a faint rustle of a breeze, crickets.
In from the porch, I open a window to hear the crickets. Golden light spreads across the field. A series of heavy thumps under the floor.
Steady drizzle after three weeks of drought. The quiet, continuous insect trill in the grass sounds the way I feel—however that may be.
6:30 a.m. and the woods are virtually devoid of birdsong. It takes me half an hour to notice the crickets in the grass, that steady ringing.
The catbird sounds self-critical, adding a brief aside after every phrase. The chipping sparrow’s never-ending alarm sets a cricket off.