Clear and cold, with wind supplying all the voices in the dawn chorus. A crow rockets past, wings at an oblique angle to its direction of travel, cheering itself on. | Continue reading
A mackerel sky slowly clearing off by mid-morning. A Carolina wren trills in the distance. The slightest of breezes makes the tulip tree’s remaining leaves tremble. | Continue reading
The red of the oaks gets an assist, first from the dawn and then the sunrise, blazing scarlet, copper or burgundy in each vase-shaped crown. | Continue reading
Sunrise delayed for a few minutes by a low bank of clouds. A gray squirrel emerges from its nest high in a black cherry and dashes down the newly exposed […] | Continue reading
Clear and cold. The sun pops up—the pea in our daylight-savings shell game. A screech owl begins to trill. | Continue reading
Red sky behind red leaves at sunrise. In the yard, big winds have stripped the tulip tree of all but its smallest leaves—the sheerest of dresses. | Continue reading
Cold wind seasoned with rain—almost maritime weather. I sit in my old barn coat like a barnacle, listening for the approach of dawn. | Continue reading
Hard rain easing off by mid-morning. The sky brightens. A junco by the springhouse warbles its most complex song. | Continue reading
Clouds gather in the east, glowing brightly as they smother the sun. A west-bound freight rumbles through the gap. Bits of walnut shell rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast. | Continue reading
Heavy frost in the yard. A few, faint clouds disappear after sunrise, as squirrels climb high into the wine-red crowns of oaks. | Continue reading
A degree above freezing, with an inversion layer bringing sound from the quarry: shrill beeps and muffled thunders of stone. In the time it takes my cereal to cook, dawn […] | Continue reading
Clear and still, with patches of light frost. The sky has made considerable inroads into the forest just since yesterday. A jay’s waking call elicits a reply from the far […] | Continue reading
Clear and still at dawn. As the last stars fade, the first sparrows begin to chirp. A crow alights on the tallest locust and begins to yell. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast at sunrise, signaled only by an upsurge in birdsong from dozens of white-throated sparrows, the Carolina wren, and a screech owl quavering in the pines. | Continue reading
Gray skies with a bitter wind. Colored leaves fly past. A pair of gray squirrels meet on the trunk of a black locust and touch snouts. | Continue reading
Wind breaking up the yellow-bellied clouds. Tulip tree samaras spin like the blades of invisible helicopters—a whole squadron headed out into the meadow. | Continue reading
Dawn turns the western ridge orange, as the roar of traffic from an inversion layer nearly drowns out the waking songbirds—all but the Carolina wren, whose teakettle teakettle teakettle is […] | Continue reading
Wind and rain at dawn. Half an hour before sunrise, a great twittering erupts from the meadow as hundreds of white-throated sparrows, sheltering deep in the goldenrod, begin to awaken. | Continue reading
Thin clouds at sunrise. I squint at a piece of cattail down floating below the balustrade and it turns into the skinniest white spider I’ve seen, ascending an invisible thread. | Continue reading
An hour before sunrise, the crescent moon makes a brief appearance through the clouds. A barred owl calls. Two hunters follow their flashlight beams into the woods. | Continue reading
Cold and quiet, with a few clouds. A raven flies over the house issuing stentorian croaks, his mate following in silence. | Continue reading
Clear and cold, with a breeze out of the north. I get my winter coat out of storage, make clouds with my breath. Church bells from town toll the hour. | Continue reading
Bright periods alternate with gloom on a cool, cloudy morning, with an intermittent breeze paging through the tulip tree leaves. A sound like the clacking of a typewriter as a […] | Continue reading
Heavily gray skies at mid-morning. A tree cricket trills in the garden—a bright drone note. The wind goes past, releasing a small crowd of yellow leaves. | Continue reading
Steady rain from heavy clouds, with the seeming glow of orange and yellow leaves in lieu of a sunrise. A drenched gray squirrel beside the porch peers up at the […] | Continue reading
From hard rain to a shimmer of drizzle to almost-sun by late morning, I have sat with a wounded foot propped up on the porch railing like an unlucky rabbit, […] | Continue reading
The gibbous moon high overhead gives a ghostly second life to the white snakeroot in the yard, its seedy inflorescences seeming to bloom again. Then an air-braking 18-wheeler bellows for […] | Continue reading
Cloudy and cold at mid-morning. The high lisp of a brown creeper at the woods’ edge. In the distance, a gray squirrel is airing a complaint about a hawk. | Continue reading
Cold, clear, and quiet except for the crow in the road when I came out, who took several, labored wingbeats to reach his high-pitched cry. | Continue reading
Early-morning rain past, a chill breeze stirs in the tulip poplar beside the springhouse, four-lobed leaves waving like jazz hands on a thousand-armed bodhisattva, some green, some yellow. | Continue reading
Overcast with an orange sunrise glow. Jays, the cardinal, a towhee. A winter wren burbles quietly beside the springhouse. | Continue reading
Crystal-clear. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the top of the tallest tree in the yard as sunrise reddens the western ridge. | Continue reading
Clear and very quiet at dawn. Some scattered towhee tweets. The thump of a walnut dropped by a half-awake squirrel. | Continue reading
Another classic October morning, crisp and clear. From the sun-struck treetops, a brown-headed cowbird’s liquid note. In the still air, a falling leaf spirals and somersaults, taking its time. | Continue reading
Cold and still at dawn, with pink clouds emerging from the engines of a jet. A white-throated sparrow pipes up. Something on four feet runs off through the deepening leaf […] | Continue reading
Cold and still, with a wash of cirrus clearing off after sunrise. Sound is out of the east, so instead of the usual roar of interstate traffic, I hear the […] | Continue reading
A cold front has delivered October’s bright blue weather right on schedule. Yellow leaves flutter down in the breeze. A Carolina wren draws again and again from a seemingly inexhaustible […] | Continue reading
Sunrise brings birdsong: a Tennesee warbler’s blur of high notes answered by a towhee’s interrogatory tweet, and a white-throated sparrow’s “Oh, sweet Canada” giving way to the reedy whistles of […] | Continue reading
A sunrise muted by cirrus. Dew dripping from the roof. The undeniable brownness of leaves that had been bright as holiday cards: death has taken that holiday, it seems. | Continue reading
Mist dissipating into blue. The walnut trees on the north side of the house are now nearly bare, even as the one on the south side is still more green […] | Continue reading
Overcast but not gloomy. Above the usual yammering of a red-bellied woodpecker, I catch a few phrases of warbler buzz: cerulean, I think. | Continue reading
Cloudy at sunrise, the sky takes its time clearing off. A walnut splats down on the driveway, trailed by a fluttery entourage of yellow leaves. | Continue reading
Steady rain. An hour past daybreak, it begins to get dark again. The rain comes down harder. A cardinal chirps. | Continue reading
Rain in widely scattered drops, a light seasoning over everything. It intensifies; a half-molted walnut tree begins leafleting the yard. It tapers off. A squirrel chisels open a nut. | Continue reading
Damp, overcast and quiet. The sprawling old white lilac battling a blight is once again flowering, with a dozen half-sized clusters at the ends of ravaged limbs looking less like […] | Continue reading
The first rain in weeks begins tapping on the roof at dawn. Then it’s here in a rush, the bone-dry leaf duff rattling into a roar. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast: a rain sky with no rain. Up in the woods, a Cooper’s hawk begins to chirp, answered seconds later by a red-tailed hawk. The two hawks exchange calls […] | Continue reading
Cloudy and cool. The shed skin of a rat snake has blown off the back roof and dangles in the branches of a walnut. In the next tree over, a […] | Continue reading