Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow
The rising sun appears through new holes in the forest understory just after it tops the ridge. Crows and jays are in an uproar over a young peregrine falcon, who hangs around for a couple of hours, periodically giving chase to its most obnoxious persecutors until they all find better things to do elsewhere.
A soft shimmer of rain at dawn, increasing as the light grows. By sunrise it’s drowning out the wren’s song. A mosquito sings in my ear.
A rare low-humidity morning begins with crows heralding the sunrise and a screech owl trilling in the distance. Yellow clouds fade to white. A bluebird begins warbling as I open my laptop.
Heavily overcast at sunrise. A screech owl trills up on the ridge, answered by a trill from down along the road. Moments later, the first patter of rain.
Long-sleeve weather at sunrise. A female hummingbird hovers in front of me, then on either side, as if trying to recall where she knows me from.
Dawn thunderstorm moving off by sunrise, which a single crow heralds from the dead top of a locust. The first hummingbird arrives at the jewelweed before the rain has quite stopped. Another storm rumbles in the west.
Clear, cool, and breezy—a week to the day after our last dry high. Six crows sit on dead branches atop the two tallest locust trees in the yard. One minute past sunrise, they look all around, shift on their perches, and take flight.
Clear and cold at sunrise. The dawn chorus is down to field sparrow, common yellowthroat and goldfinches. Distant crows. A truck jake-breaking through the gap. A red-eyed vireo starts up.
Humid, cool and overcast at sunrise — an orange glow. Two thin deer wander through the meadow at the edge of the woods, lowering their heads for a mouthful of bracken, some grass, a goldenrod tip …
Cold, but no frost. A hummingbird just after sunrise buzzes up to a dame’s-rocket blossom, turns and flies off. The sun gathers strength in the treetops.
Breezy and cold, which the sun rising through clouds and half-leafed-out trees does little to abate. But when it emerges fully, I blink into a glisten of raindrops from last night’s showers winking back.
A couple degrees above freezing—the first clear morning in days. The sun blazing through the still mostly leafless oaks illuminates the dust on my glasses.
Damp and overcast for the dawn chorus, which includes the accelerating buzz of a black-throated blue warbler, and a yellow-throated vireo slurring his syllables. The hidden sunrise gets noted, as usual, by a crow.
A flaming pink sky subsides into orange, then gray. A scattering of raindrops. A red squirrel follows a chipping sparrow’s rattle with one of its own.