A dozen geese come honking over the house, interrupting three crows sharing their excitement over a venison gut pile up in the woods.
deer
October 21, 2023
In the half-light, a patter of hooves from just inside the woods. The grunts of a buck in rut. A dawn sky coming through the trees.
September 23, 2023
Overcast and still, with a low rumble of traffic from the east. In the half-light, a deer’s ear pivots among the goldenrod.
August 3, 2023
An orange moon gone slightly flat hangs in the southwest at dawn. An eight-point buck grazes under the old lilac.
July 23, 2023
The second cool morning in a row, but quieter and not quite as clear. A deer looks up at me more with annoyance than alarm and goes back to grazing.
July 17, 2023
The best way to summon a hummingbird, it seems, is with another hummingbird: as soon as one appears, there’s another to fight with it. A deer sneezes behind the springhouse.
June 10, 2023
Breezy and clear. A deer steps out of the woods, grunting softly to collect her fawn, who comes leaping through the purple pom-poms of dame’s-rocket.
May 2, 2023
A hair above freezing with rain tapering off. Two skinny deer, still in their gray-brown winter pelts, pick their way through the sodden vegetation.
March 31, 2023
Gray and still. A robin sings softly for a change. Two whitetails below my mother’s back porch bound up the hillside and out of sight.
November 21, 2022
Clear, cold (13F/-10C) and very quiet. Foraging deer have scraped a bare patch in the snow. A sliver of moon slips through the treetops.
November 6, 2022
Daybreak. A buck sniffing the ground for signs of estrus scratches his head with a back hoof. A mosquito sings into my ear.
November 5, 2022
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on.
November 4, 2022
Cold sunrise. The green hippogriff of a lilac just starting to yellow. Dry leaves whispering of deer in heat.
June 24, 2022
Overcast and cool. Two deer run into the woods as another snorts alarm up in the field. Another hummingbird buzzes me, ruby gorget ablaze.