Cloudy in the east at sunrise, as the moon’s sideways smile fades overhead. The plaintive piping of white-throated sparrows is interrupted by a song sparrow’s cheery warble.
moon
Time-change day. It’s cold and very still. A lone goose flies past the half moon, honking.
Neither as cold nor as clear as recent mornings, with the sun thinly veiled by atmospheric murk. The golden-leaved tulip tree in the yard looks duller now than it did in the full moonlight at 4:00 a.m.
With most of the forest understorey bare, one can see so much more through the trees: a full moon setting in the west, a flock of geese, the white tail of a deer retreating like a ghost into the dark mountain laurel bushes.
The coldest morning of the autumn so far, but no frost. Pileated woodpeckers yammer in the distance as the sun climbs through golden leaves toward the moon’s thin grin.
Cold and clear before dawn. I lean forward to tie my boots in the light of the half moon, then sit back in deep shadow. A barred owl calls once, twice. Orion lies on his side above the ridge—a hunter half out of bed on this, the opening day of deer season.
The streak of a meteor below the crescent moon doesn’t reach the thin ground fog. I watch the stars fade until only Rigel remains—Orion’s left foot. It slips from view fifteen minutes before sunrise. A minute later, the first mosquito whines in my ear.
Moonlit dawn. A screech owl quavers, prompting a barred owl to hoot. As light builds in the east, a whippoorwill begins to shriek.
Thin fog forms as the rising sun begins warming the humid air and rain-soaked vegetation. I look for the half moon, still high overhead, in a large patch of blue.
Out early for the moon and whippoorwill, and soon enough the only blue sky we’re likely to see all day. Everything drips. Half-open aspen leaves hang like gray dishrags from the sapling in the yard.
A crescent moon at dawn through trees on the cusp of leaf-out—possibly my last such view until October. It remains the only scrap of white in the sky as the sun’s first gleam tops the ridge.
Brick-red clouds barely move as a relentless wind rummages through the trees and shrubs on the ridgeside. A thin slice of moon gets lost among tossing limbs.
We may have lost an hour from our phones, but at least the nukes haven’t started flying yet. The half moon sets. A few drops of rain darken the sidewalk. I am regarded gravely by a red squirrel.
Crescent moon high in the east at dawn. Great-horned owls duet in the distance. A long freight train wraps the mountain in its rumble.