Cold drizzle. A brown thrasher improvises at the woods’ edge, and I spot the first tent caterpillar web—a tiny white flag in a wild cherry.
tent caterpillars
February 24, 2013
In the cold wind, a gray fish fights against the lilac twig that snagged it: the collapsed remains of a caterpillar tent fallen from a tree.
August 21, 2012
Tent caterpillar webs billow, white as sails—still full of the dawn fog. Two nuthatches kvetch back and forth at the woods’ edge.
August 12, 2011
Clear and cold. In their communal tent, the caterpillars lie still as mummies in a tomb—gray forms already in their burial wrappings.
September 30, 2010
Steady rain; the early-morning light lasts for hours. A large, grayish blob halfway up a tree turns out to be only a caterpillar tent.
May 21, 2009
A female indigo bunting drops into the cherry tree to snack on tiny tent caterpillars, reaching daintily into their vase-shaped nest.
June 6, 2008
Tropical humidity. A tent caterpillar clings to the edge of my warped old end table like the last unrotted section of a Victorian fringe.
April 25, 2008
Black cherries leaf out before flowering, but this morning I notice three white spots in the one across the road: budding caterpillar tents.
January 21, 2008
Very cold, clear and still. My last dream before waking was of hummingbirds, and the trees at sunset shimmering with caterpillar tents.