Thin but steady rain. A moth flutters up under my end-table to roost. At the woods’ edge, the bindweed has gotten to the top of its dead lilac stem, and extends a long feeler toward the lowest overhanging limb that sways just out of reach.
rain
Raininess without much actual raining. The low motor of a hummingbird somewhere in the garden. An aborted black walnut crashes down on the back roof.
Humid and cool, with last night’s rain still dripping from the trees. A lilac limb dead since last summer is greening up with bindweed. The new Carolina wren tries a dozen different variations on his teakettle theme, but so far no female has materialized.
Rain starts at first light. A soggy dawn chorus soon subsides, leaving only the new Carolina wren with his exotic accent and enthusiasm. As the rain thickens, he too falls silent.
A mid-morning downpour. I push my chair back from the sudden curtain of roof-runoff and continue writing to the thrum of it. After half an hour it subsides into drizzle and birdsong. A male towhee flits through the yard, pursued by a pair of begging fledglings.
Light rain. A large bumblebee buzzes past. The phoebe keeps making his sorties from the ring of old fencing around a volunteer red oak seedling, which no doubt appreciates the extra fertilizer.
Rain tapers off by mid-morning, each iris leaf laden with shining encapsulations of the white sky. A small dinosaur known as a great-crested flycatcher calls at the woods’ edge.
A downpour tapers into hard rain and I can hear the birds again. Whatever the cerulean warbler might be asking, he doesn’t seem satisfied with a redstart’s insistent response.
A gloomy morning punctuated by brief showers. I look up at one point to spot a male hummingbird rocketing back and forth above the creek, performing for a female perched in a black elderberry bush that has just leafed out.
Steady rain since before daybreak: the dawn chorus gains a rhythmless drumbeat. A red squirrel tries to run past my feet and loses its nerve in a panicked scrabbling of claws.
A pause between showers fills with birdsong—the red-eyed vireo AKA preacher bird is back. Then a brown thrasher joins the chat.
Breezy and cold, which the sun rising through clouds and half-leafed-out trees does little to abate. But when it emerges fully, I blink into a glisten of raindrops from last night’s showers winking back.
A flaming pink sky subsides into orange, then gray. A scattering of raindrops. A red squirrel follows a chipping sparrow’s rattle with one of its own.
Overcast and cold and sunrise, with drips and drops that slowly coalesce into rain. My nostrils flare: the thirsty earth is already releasing petrichor. The field sparrows sing on.