Out before dawn, I find moonlight in my chair. A song sparrow sings one phrase, possibly without waking up. A quiet trickle from the spring.
stream
Dawn comes during a break in the rain, building from one lone cardinal to a phoebe singing contest to a mob of crows. From the pipe under the road, a winter wren’s soft cascade.
Dark and overcast at dawn. The creek has subsided—a hubbub rather than a roar. The cardinal who roosts in the red cedar next to the house calls once at 6:03 and goes back to sleep.
Thick fog brightening in the east. Over the roar of the creek, a phoebe’s small, inexhaustible engine.
In the pre-dawn darkness, nothing but the sounds of rain and water. A low rumbling comes from the hole in my yard that leads down to the stream just before it emerges into a spring.
Rain. Every ditch runs with whitewater. Behind the bright forsythia, a gray wall of fog swallows the trees. Nevertheless, a wren.
Thin clouds gone faintly pink. Under the endless robin song, a winter wren sings burbling accompaniment to the creek.
Time Change Day! I for one welcome our chronological overlords, and I’m out at the new 6:30 just as the weather, too, is making a change, the creek roaring, snowflakes drifting down.
After a bright sunrise, the clouds move in, one settling among the trees. The creek sounds more sober now, and here and there, the grass is greening up.
The creek still sings yesterday morning’s rainy tune, but by 8:00 o’clock the uniform white sky has devolved into patches of dark and light.
Swans before dawn, their moonlit cries drifting down from over the north end of the mountain. A quiet trickle from the stream. The scent of thawed earth.
A song sparrow singing at first light as if it were March already. A quiet trickle from the spring. The moon gapes through the treetops, pale and hollowed out.
Overcast and quiet except for the watery chorus. A chipmunk dashes across a patch of snow and disappears under the house.
Meltwater roars in the creek. In the orange glow of sunrise, the cardinals emerge from the juniper tree, singing.