An hour past sunrise, a gnatcatcher picks off the few survivors of a tent caterpillar colony in a black cherry at the woods’ edge. A hummingbird circles my red bandanna.
tent caterpillars
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.
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.
Tent caterpillar webs billow, white as sails—still full of the dawn fog. Two nuthatches kvetch back and forth at the woods’ edge.
Clear and cold. In their communal tent, the caterpillars lie still as mummies in a tomb—gray forms already in their burial wrappings.
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.
A female indigo bunting drops into the cherry tree to snack on tiny tent caterpillars, reaching daintily into their vase-shaped nest.
Tropical humidity. A tent caterpillar clings to the edge of my warped old end table like the last unrotted section of a Victorian fringe.
Black cherries leaf out before flowering, but this morning I notice three white spots in the one across the road: budding caterpillar tents.
Very cold, clear and still. My last dream before waking was of hummingbirds, and the trees at sunset shimmering with caterpillar tents.