High atmospheric haze from distant forest fires makes for a murky sunrise. An oriole fresh from the tropics sings as brightly as ever from the top of the tallest tree.
sunrise
Ground fog turns the field white at sunrise. A rabbit feeding at the edge of the driveway feels me watching and looks up, eyes unreadable as quicksand.
Cold and half-clear for a red sunrise. The stream is still quiet—more raininess than actual rain. From off in the distance, a wood thrush’s ethereal trill.
Cold and clear aside from some high-atmosphere haze, which gives the light a timeless feel as the sun climbs through a hillside of flowering oaks.
Cool and damp at sunrise. A small cottontail grazes at the woods’ edge: a salad of tiny leaves. A gnatcatcher’s soft soliloquy.
Cool and clear at sunrise. A gobbler trailed by two hens parades up into the forest, making a half-turn each time he opens the dark fan of his tail.
Sun glimmering through fog as wild turkeys whine and gobble, mourning doves moan, and a red-winged blackbird sings in the marsh.
The rambling old lilac is twice as green as it was yesterday, beginning to glow as the sun climbs out of some early-morning murk.
Crystal-clear and still. Two pileated woodpeckers a quarter mile apart are having a drum-off. The rising sun sneaks up behind a tree.
Sunrise into thin cirrus. A few seconds of liquid joy: the song of winter wrens, two of them, darting low over the creek.
Robins have joined the dawn chorus to dramatic effect; the hollow’s echo chamber throbs with birdsong. The first vulture of the day soars past a pink-bellied cloud.
Fog and scattered showers. The last few woodcock peents overlap with phoebes—two of them already, trying to out-sing each other.
Clear and cold. All the while the sunrise seeps down from the treetops, a squirrel files away at a rock-hard black walnut shell to extract meat seasoned by months underground.
A dozen dead leaves circle the yard as the clouds’ bellies turn orange. A phoebe calls once, sotto voce, from a branch above the creek.