Moon low in the west, as bright as a searchlight. Two silent crows fly over the house. The clouds’ bellies begin to glow.
sunrise
Cold and still, with an almost-mackerel sky that Vs of tundra swans keep crossing—their clarinet notes, their breast feathers golden with sunrise.
Fast-moving, yellow-bellied clouds stream up from the southeast, clearing to reveal a long bow of tundra swans arrowing north.
Just enough thinning of clouds for a classic, red-in-the-morning wash of mauve in the east, where quarry trucks are loud with their first loads.
No sign of the sun after a lurid dawn—the forecasted rain has its P.R. down. I can smell it. I listen for the first drops through a torrent of birdsong.
High clouds yellow with sunrise appear to have some business off to the east. A downy woodpecker on a dead locust limb fires off a blast beat.
The western ridge turns barn-red with sunrise. As it fades to gold, down in the hollow a mob of crows starts up, jeering, denouncing.
-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.
The snowpack is holey again. A sunrise sky is visible through the trees on the ridgetop for just a few minutes until the fog descends.
Sunrise layers of yellow and blue, cloud and clear. High in a black birch, two chickadees feed and squabble.
Overcast with short-lived bright patches in the clouds. A cardinal sings a few notes at the time indicated for sunrise. Then it’s back to the sound of the wind.
Damp and not as cold. A squirrel loses a persistent follower in a treetop maze. The risen sun almost breaks through the clouds.
Cold (20F/-7C) and clear. The half-moon is an ear cocked to the west, where sunrise spreads down the ridge like an orange rash.
Fog prolongs the dawn well past sunrise. How long will squirrels keep scolding after a cat has slunk away? Ten minutes and counting.