A crescent moon above the ridge at dawn is lost in fog by sunrise. A hummingbird bothers the bergamot, and a wood thrush is singing as lustily as if it were still June.
dawn
July 18, 2025
Dawn. I wake a wren roosting above the door. The cardinal is already singing—and off in the distance, another cardinal responds. They seem in general agreement.
July 3, 2025
Out at dawn for the cardinal’s opening salvo and a mosquito nuzzling my neck. The twittering of goldfinches. An east-bound freight blows its horn.
June 14, 2025
Rain at dawn tapering off into another patter alongside the red-eyed vireo’s. Wood thrushes sing back and forth. From deep in the lilac, a house finch lets loose.
March 27, 2025
Five degrees below freezing and half-cloudy at dawn, clearing off by sunrise. The robin is missing in action, offering no competition for the caroling of a Carolina wren.
March 25, 2025
Dawn. A last glimpse of the moon through the clouds as the torrent of robin song is joined by a cardinal, a phoebe, the wren.
March 24, 2025
A damp, gray dawn sweetened by the calls of field sparrows and a bluebird up by the barn. A small shower passes through the woods, rustling like a millipede in the dead leaves.
March 23, 2025
Clear, cold, and quiet. The rising moon gleams like a scimitar as it passes behind the big tulip tree, and emerges five minutes later as pale as a grub.
March 18, 2025
A degree or two below freezing at dawn. The flat-tire moon fades into obscurity in the middle of a cloudless sky. The ridge turns red.
March 16, 2025
Dawn arrives between showers. I think about all the cicada larvae of Brood XIV stirring under the ground, preparing for the last and most eventful spring of their lives.
March 14, 2025
A few degrees above freezing and very still. The full moon hangs above the western ridge, fresh from its run-in with the earth’s shadow, glowing yellow.
March 11, 2025
Another crystal-clear dawn. A song sparrow and a Carolina wren are trading licks, following initial solos from a robin and a cardinal, all over the whine of traffic.
March 10, 2025
In the half dark, the roar of Monday morning traffic from over the ridge. The last stars fade. A cardinal pipes up.
March 7, 2025
Windy, cold and clear at dawn. A song sparrow pipes up from the depths of the lilac. The ridge turns red.