Spring peeper just after moonset. Then whippoorwill. Wood thrush. Carolina wren. Phoebe. A pileated woodpecker cackles and it’s day.
whippoorwill
5:58 am. The crescent moon is increasingly alone in the sky as the dawn light metastasizes. A distant whippoorwill.
Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.
5:15. The moon through thin clouds. A whip-poor-will’s distant chant. 9:15. The sun through thin clouds. A hummingbird’s mid-air defecation.
Dawn stealing influence from the just-past-full moon. The whip-poor-will awakening the catbird.
Dawn. Thin fog infiltrates the trees’ pointillist green. A whip-poor-will calls at the woods’ edge with the absolute conviction of the mad.
Awakened at first light by a whip-poor-will, I find my lost hat and sit outside watching a white cat hunt at the edge of the road.
4:50 a.m.: moonlight and dawn-light are at equilibrium. Then the whip-poor-will starts his insane chant. Other birds wake and chime in.