Overcast and quiet an hour before sunrise. Hunters’ headlamps move back and forth on the dark hillside like lost stars.
sunrise
The sun clears the ridge and I’m blinded—the oaks are mostly bare now. Those that aren’t, glow red like a scattering of old barns.
Sunrise glowing orange between the half-naked ridgetop oaks. The yard fills with small birds: sparrows, kinglets, the inevitable wren.
Overcast sunrise for the return to standard time. The restless footsteps of a buck below the house, carrying his rack of bare branches into the woods.
Thin clouds turn livid for the sunrise. A chickadee twitters. Two minutes later, we’re back to gloom.
Dark at sunrise, but only a sprinkle of rain. Up in the woods, a deer rustles through freshly fallen leaves, breakfasting on acorns.
Sunrise: pink and orange in the sky as on the hillside. A white-breasted nuthatch punctuates a white-throated sparrow’s song.
Gray sky ten minutes after a flaming sunrise. A phoebe calls for old times’ sake. Quarry trucks rumble through the gap.
Clear, cold, and still. Two hours after sunrise, the sun finally strikes my face. Random chirps from migrant birds. The first cicada starts up.
Clear and cold. I hear a hummingbird below the porch, buzzing from one orange jewelweed goblet to the next. The sun must be up.
Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.
Sunrise filling every cloud’s belly with pink as the Carolina wren trills over and over—once for each cloud, it seems.
A mosquito rests on the arm of my Adirondack chair, watching the sunrise. A hummingbird surprised by a sudden movement buzzes toward me rather than away.
Clear and cool at sunrise. A phoebe’s bill snaps on a slow cranefly. From high overhead, the tolling of a bell soon turns into raven croaks.