Cool and crystal-clear. The first sun to reach the meadow tries out a cage of chicken wire made for a volunteer tulip tree seedling, turning it into a shining tower above the weeds.
sunrise
Long johns on the first of June! 41F/5C. And the sun already in the treetops with the goldfinches.
Cold and crystal-clear. Sound is out of the east, where the quarry machines grind, giving the rising sun an industrial soundtrack.
Fog lifts to reveal blue sky, the sun in the treetops. A scarlet tanager hurtles past the porch with a second in close pursuit. The morning’s first itch prickles the back of my hand.
A break in the clouds allows a bit of sunrise to stain the treetops, where a noisy kestrel gets dive-bombed by a robin. A pair of black cherry trees are in bloom—white snouts pointing in all directions.
A damp sunrise after thunderstorms in the night. Waves of scent from the lilac, whose blossoms are beginning to fade and droop. The nonstop chatter of goldfinches.
Gloomy sunrise, with a cloud snagged on the treetops, leaking rain. A titmouse takes advantage of a lull in the chorus to hype his own claim. A tanager’s plucked string.
A warm breeze at sunrise. My reading is interrupted by an unfamiliar trill: a redheaded woodpecker in the dead crown of the tallest black locust. I watch through binoculars as he works over the tree and himself, probing under bark one moment and under his wing the next.
Cloudless at sunrise, with rain still clinging to the grass. Tree leaves are on average half open now, making the woods’ edge half screen, half wall.
The sun rose while I was watching the moon. Now there’s a black-throated blue warbler at the woods’ edge whispering its three-syllable song.
The sun climbs from clarity into murk. Feeling insufficiently caffeinated, I watch the tulip tree’s tall, green torch fade to chartreuse.
Cool with a clearing sky at sunrise. A blue-headed vireo’s soliloquy. The smell of damp earth.
In the last few minutes before the sun crests the ridge, ghosts lingering among the trees turn back into blossoming shadbush. A chickadee is singing his spring song.
A still morning after last night’s violent storms. The tulip trees have burst their buds—a pale green haze. A few high clouds in the east turn purple.