Cold and clear. Three waxwings join the sun high in the dead crown of a black locust, yellow bellies aglow.
sunrise
Thursday June 16, 2022
Hazy and humid. The sun in the crown of the big dead maple. A hen turkey putting like a slow motor, summoning her chicks.
Thursday June 09, 2022
Just past sunrise, a clearing wind. I look up from the Eastern Europe of my book to flame-bellied clouds, the forest all astir.
Tuesday May 31, 2022
Treetops rusty with sun. Worm-eating warbler—or is it a chipping sparrow? That dry rattle. A pair of mating craneflies goes unsteadily past.
Monday May 02, 2022
Sun through thinning fog—prismatic beads of water twinkling from every twig like the souls of dead leaves. It feels almost masochistic to turn my eyes to my book.
Friday April 15, 2022
Clear and cold. Sunlight fills the tall tulip tree, which is shaped like martini glass, from the top down. A woodpecker duets with his echo.
Monday April 11, 2022
Clear at sunrise but with enough high-altitude murk to turn the western ridge red. A lone goose flies over, honking.
Saturday April 09, 2022
A hint of yellow in the east soon fades to gloom. It’s one degree above freezing. Tiny silhouettes in the crown of a black birch—kinglets?
Friday April 08, 2022
Crystal-clear. Treetops stained with sun. A gray squirrel pours itself into the lilac. The creek’s full-throated chorus.
Thursday April 07, 2022
Dark and rainy at sunrise; ridgetop lost in fog. Down in the boggy corner of the meadow, one spring peeper is still calling.
Monday April 04, 2022
Bare branches mellowing the sun’s blaze. Two crows fly into the woods and one flies out. There are eight million stories in the naked forest.
Tuesday March 29, 2022
Still bitter cold, but the wind has died. Clouds redden. A phoebe snags breakfast from the bark of a tree like a nuthatch.
Monday March 28, 2022
Bitter cold at sunrise. The usual singers are subdued, except for one dove. The occasional bang of heartwood split by ice.
Monday March 21, 2022
Deep blue sky; two degrees above freezing. As the sun climbs out of the trees, the morning chorus dies down until it’s only the Carolina wren.