Cold and clear 40 minutes before sunrise. A shadow flutters in beside the porch and begins to shriek: whippoorwill. When he finally stops, the meadow is alive with twittering.
dawn
In the half-light of dawn, a Carolina wren burbles aggressively inches away from my ear. Three fledgling wrens blink awake in the porch rafters.
Another deliciously cool dawn. A wood thrush on the far side of the yard sings a simplified, less ethereal version of their call—the result no doubt of having been raised too close to traffic or industrial noise.
A catbird running through his dawn monologue is drowned out by a whippoorwill. Fog forms in the lower hollow, extending a ghostly finger into the marsh.
Is it clear or clouded over? A gibbous moon turning pink above the ridge provides the answer. The great-crested flycatcher wakes up.
Dawn. Strips of cloud redden like a ladder of blood. But for sheer augury, nothing can top a blossoming hawthorn at the forest edge issuing a torrent of wood thrush song.
A towhee sings from the woods’ edge as the eastern sky brightens: Drink your, drink your, drink your… I raise my tea in salute.
Unseasonably warm at dawn, trees swaying, and I have to shake my head hard to dispel a vision of charred trunks and smoking hillsides. A pale moth flutters past.
Two phoebes in a singing contest at dawn. A warm breeze. The half-moon settles in a tall pine.
Clear and cold, with the third-quarter moon just cresting the trees. The dawn chorus begins with a gobbling turkey. A minute later the robin joins in.
Clear and cold with the deep quiet that only a major holiday can bring. A distant train. A Carolina wren’s sleepy start to the dawn chorus.
Still and cold at dawn. A cardinal sings once in the moonlight and goes back to sleep for ten minutes. A small cloud turns to rust.
Rain and fog linger from a pre-dawn thunderstorm as the sky brightens. The nasal calls of woodcocks mingle with a torrent of robin song.
Robins have joined the dawn chorus to dramatic effect; the hollow’s echo chamber throbs with birdsong. The first vulture of the day soars past a pink-bellied cloud.