Sunrise from under a lid of cloud turning the ridge orange. The robin sings a few bars. A propellor plane fades into the distance.
sunrise
March 27, 2025
Five degrees below freezing and half-cloudy at dawn, clearing off by sunrise. The robin is missing in action, offering no competition for the caroling of a Carolina wren.
March 26, 2025
A few degrees above freezing at sunrise. A titmouse’s monotonous song. The clouds turn orange and drift off like boats into the blue.
March 19, 2025
Cool and clear. At sunrise a red squirrel appears on the end of my porch instead of the usual gray squirrel, spots me, and moves over to the stone wall where chipmunks always sit, nervously peering all about.
March 18, 2025
A degree or two below freezing at dawn. The flat-tire moon fades into obscurity in the middle of a cloudless sky. The ridge turns red.
March 13, 2025
Red not where the sun rises but where the clouds are thin, off to the north. A silent crow takes a seat in the treetops. The thump of a squirrel falling to the forest floor.
March 12, 2025
Overcast at sunrise, the clouds begin to show cracks of blue. A song sparrow continues with his hip-hip-hurrahing long after the others have gone off to forage.
March 8, 2025
Half an inch of wet snow has turned things white again, if not for long: the wind blows clumps of snow from the trees. The sun comes up.
March 7, 2025
Windy, cold and clear at dawn. A song sparrow pipes up from the depths of the lilac. The ridge turns red.
February 26, 2025
A sky of pastel colors occasionally graced by a bleary sun. Strings of non-migrant, local Canada geese fly low over the trees, restless, their cries still full of elsewhere.
February 22, 2025
The sun! A robin answers the Carolina wren as a pileated woodpecker hammers away at a hollow black walnut tree.
February 19, 2025
Cold, thinly overcast, and very quiet. The spot where the sun must be glows like a yellow door among the ridgetop trees.
February 11, 2025
Heavily overcast at sunrise. A meadow vole is busy with home improvement, popping out of the ground every minute or two to gather stiltgrass.
February 8, 2025
Heavily overcast. A vole briefly surfaces in the yard, all dark fur and blur. A screech owl trills on the ridgetop where the sun should be.