A few clouds at sunrise. Goldfinches chatter over the rap battles of ovenbirds and vireos. Bracken leaves are still opening in the yard—feathers on feathers.
sunrise
May 6, 2025
Foggy at sunrise. A turkey gobbles non-stop from up in the field, and the woods ring with vireos and ovenbirds. At the edge of the porch, a gray squirrel nuzzles her almost-grown offspring.
May 1, 2025
A wood thrush is singing at the edge of the woods at sunrise—that old sweet song. Behind him, the tall hawthorn has just come into bloom.
April 30, 2025
Clear and cool at sunrise. A feral cat slinks through the coverts at the woods’ edge, pursued by a small, mostly silent entourage of chickadees and titmice.
April 28, 2025
Sunrise gutters in a gray bank of clouds. It’s cold. My breath hangs in the air like winter’s ghost.
April 27, 2025
The sun climbs through blossoming oaks whispery with wind. Pileated woodpeckers exchange volleys of thunder. A downy woodpecker rattles like a beggar with a cup.
April 24, 2025
Clear and cool at sunrise, with ovenbirds calling in the woods and a red-winged blackbird in the meadow. Two squirrels climb high into the canopy to taste the oak blossoms.
April 20, 2025
A cooler sunrise this morning with wind from the north. A ruby-crowned kinglet warbles up and down the scale. A hen turkey picks her way through spring onions.
April 17, 2025
Clear and still with frost in the yard and the gibbous moon caught in the treetops like a deflated balloon. A brown creeper sprials up a walnut tree. The sun comes up.
April 10, 2025
Sunrise somewhere between showers, cold and sodden, the sky flat-white like the eye of a dead fish. No flies for the flycatchers, no sun for the wren.
April 8, 2025
A patchwork sky at sunrise with a bitter wind. The daffodils’ cups are all overturned. A few lost snowflakes straggle past.
April 4, 2025
A damp and gloomy sunrise. Juncos twitter in the tops of black birches. A cowbird’s liquid note.
March 28, 2025
Sunrise from under a lid of cloud turning the ridge orange. The robin sings a few bars. A propellor plane fades into the distance.
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.