Ten minutes before first light, the first distant, barking dog. Ten minutes before that, a barred owl’s cackle.
dawn
August 13, 2021
First light. A meteor slices through Orion below the belt, and I flinch like a spectator at a pro wrestling match.
August 12, 2021
Dawn. A bat zig-zags high over the meadow en route to its roost as the few clouds turn pink.
August 3, 2021
5:15. The crescent moon’s parenthesis gapes at Pleiades, which I watch until it’s subsumed into the dawn.
July 12, 2021
Dawn mediated by fog is slower, but it gets to the same, obvious spectacle in the end. And the usual wren has something to say about it.
June 5, 2021
Venus in the dawn sky. Phoebe, field sparrow, wood pewee. The alarm-snorts of a deer.
June 3, 2021
First light. Near where the stream gurgles under the road, a song sparrow sings a dream version of his usual song.
May 28, 2021
Dawn stealing influence from the just-past-full moon. The whip-poor-will awakening the catbird.
March 24, 2021
Dawn. A phoebe and a cardinal are singing in the rain. At the woods’ edge, the last patch of snow has shrunk to the size of a hubcap.
January 26, 2021
Dawn. In the dim light, a pitter-patter of freezing rain slowly turns into the dry whisper of sleet, then the hush of snow — and back again.
January 15, 2020
Slow winter dawn: light leaking through the trees. A Carolina wren’s molto vivace prompts his mate to respond in sforzando.
September 23, 2018
Off to the northeast, a thin band of clear sky for the dawn to tint. A squirrel drops a walnut from the treetops. The catbird starts to mew.
September 13, 2018
Foggy at dawn. When I open the door, a Carolina wren zips out of the old hornets’ nest under the porch roof and disappears into the lilac.
September 12, 2017
Awakened at first light by a whip-poor-will, I find my lost hat and sit outside watching a white cat hunt at the edge of the road.