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.
sunrise
May 14, 2024
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.
May 8, 2024
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.
May 5, 2024
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.
May 2, 2024
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.
May 1, 2024
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.
April 30, 2024
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.
April 23, 2024
The sun climbs from clarity into murk. Feeling insufficiently caffeinated, I watch the tulip tree’s tall, green torch fade to chartreuse.
April 20, 2024
Cool with a clearing sky at sunrise. A blue-headed vireo’s soliloquy. The smell of damp earth.
April 16, 2024
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.
April 15, 2024
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.
April 14, 2024
Still and crystal-clear at sunrise. A couple of whines from a hen turkey conjure up a gobble from the ridgetop. The blue-headed vireo’s soliloquy.
April 7, 2024
Crystal-clear at sunrise. Every morning more yellow—daffodils, spicebush. Leftover from winter, the bone-white branches of tulip poplar that squirrels have stripped to line their dreys.
April 6, 2024
A spit of rain in my face at sunrise, despite the lack of clouds—classic April. It’s cold. The miniature daffodils have been blooming for a solid month.