Overcast but not gloomy. Above the usual yammering of a red-bellied woodpecker, I catch a few phrases of warbler buzz: cerulean, I think.
red-bellied woodpecker
Cloudy and cool with a 100% chance of falling walnuts—though admittedly, some are being dropped by squirrels. A red-bellied woodpecker keeps up an anxious commentry.
Clear and cold, with a faint patch of frost on the barn roof. Winged tulip tree seeds litter the porch. A red-bellied woodpecker tuts from the top of a tall locust.
Everything drips and glistens after last night’s storm. Red-bellied woodpeckers exchange calls then lapse into silence. A distant train.
Half an hour past sunrise, a hummingbird and a hoverfly both find my head to be an object of interest. A red-bellied woodpecker cackles from a tall locust.
Clear and cold. The beeps of quarry trucks mingle with the shrill calls of red-bellied woodpeckers. Two hummingbirds in a high-speed chase fly out of the woods and up over the house.
Overcast at sunrise. The jumping spider who lives under my chair comes topside for a brief scuttle about. A red-bellied woodpecker bangs on his morning drum.
Overcast and cold, with a red-bellied woodpecker’s ceaseless whinnying. The old crabapple tree is red and ready to open for sunshine and bees.
Rainy and cool. An eastern towhee is urging me—according to the time-honored birders’ mnemonic—to drink my tea, while woodpeckers large and small bang their heads against the trees.
Dripping at dawn has thickened into steady rain by the time I get out of the shower. The robins, cardinals, woodpeckers and wrens seem barely to have noticed. It’s spring.
At the end of a tunnel of shining twigs, the rising sun. A red-bellied woodpecker whinnies from the top of a locust tree. The furnace under my house rumbles to life.
A mottled gray sky all the way to the horizon, not brightening even for the sunrise, let alone for the crows with their many complaints or the red-bellied woodpecker jeering from the top of a black locust.
An hour past sunrise and the sky is brightening. A red-bellied woodpecker makes anxious chirps, prompting a flicker to respond. A tree drops a dead limb into last year’s leaves.
For the third morning in a row, the thermometer hovers just above freezing as drizzle falls. Woodpeckers are already at work, beating their heads against trees.