Rainy and cold. An indigo bunting and a phoebe clash briefly in the air above the stream and retire to neighboring walnut branches.
rain
Mid-morning, and the rain has dwindled into cold mizzle. In the marsh at the bottom of the meadow, the spring peepers start back up.
Waiting for rain, everything sounds like an augury—catbird, chipmunk, great-crested flycatcher—and just before the first drops, that hush.
The stream is quieter than I would’ve thought after so much rain. The sun comes out, and the one ant tending to a peony bud moves her antennae.
The rain arrives just about at church time, hard, steady, drowning out all other sound. Only the big mullein leaves still look dry.
A mid-morning pause in the rain. The towhee attacks a catbird gathering dead grass under the lilac, driving it off, then sings in triumph.
Agog at the intense green of a deciduous forest at leaf-out in the rain. The soundtrack: wood thrush, red-eyed vireo, least flycatcher.
Light rain. The catbird lands on a branch with nesting material in his beak, which all falls out when he goes to sing.
Two male towhees displaying at each other with what looks almost like affection. A brown thrasher’s one-bird echo chamber. The smell of rain.
After last night’s rain, the sun keeps not coming out. Up in the woods, a breeze in the top of one red oak makes a sudden shower.
Cold rain. I tap the thermometer and it drops another two degrees. The rattle of sleet gives way after a few minutes to the silence of snow.
The last to shed leaves in the fall is the first to regrow them: sprawling lilac with green tongues just long enough to catch drops of rain.
The rain eases off and the sun ventures out. I spot two mullein plants in the yard, leaves fattening into foundations for the coming stalks.
Under a slowly clearing sky, the new, red-green peony leaves are still beaded with last night’s rain. No trains running; it’s all birdsong.