Sun through thin cirrus. Half an hour of a hawk hunting the yellow woods and I have yet to catch a glimpse, tracking its movement only by squirrel and jay […] | Continue reading
Another crystal-clear morning. The roar of traffic from over the ridge dies down as the air warms, leaving the jeers of jays and the high whistles of waxwings. | Continue reading
Cloudy and cool with a 100% chance of falling walnuts—though admittedly, some are being dropped by squirrels. A red-bellied woodpecker keeps up an anxious commentry. | Continue reading
A knife-thin moon fades into the dawn sky. The only cloud huddles in the bottom corner of the meadow, where a phoebe is calling. | Continue reading
There’s more yellow than ever in the woods’ edge trees, in the spicebushes, in the meadows filled with goldenrod, and now the sun—the opposite of mellow among the yellow leaves […] | Continue reading
Mounds of white snakeroot in the yard glow dimly in the light of a half moon. Orion gets one leg over the ridge before he starts to fade, and the […] | Continue reading
Under a cacophony of jays, a doe and two fawns with their spots all gone graze just inside the edge of the woods. One does a sudden dance, spinning around […] | Continue reading
Sun in the treetops, joined by jays in noisy, acorn-gathering joy. A pewee bends a note. The distant grind of the quarry. | Continue reading
Clear and still, with dew dripping off the roof and a pair of phoebes yelling “Phoebe!” at each other. Twenty-four years ago, the sky was just this clear. | Continue reading
Canada geese, a screech owl, some crows, and the inevitable wren sing in the sunrise, the western ridge turning red under a flat-tire moon. | Continue reading
Another cold sunrise. A distant Carolina wren song prompts the wren roosting atop my heating oil tank to come flying out singing and land in the bracken. | Continue reading
Cold, clear, and still at sunrise, with little sign of the more than two million birds who streamed overhead during the moonlit hours aside from a few soft, scattered chirps. | Continue reading
Partly cloudy and cool at sunrise, with more yellow and orange leaves than I’ve ever seen this early in the fall: not just walnut and black gum but black birch, […] | Continue reading
A shimmer of rain, which the roof gathers into a smattering of drips. A pileated woodpecker flies over, yelling its head off. A pair of catbirds exchange notes. | Continue reading
Inside a white whale of fog, the trees drip and drop yellow leaves, and the sun is felt more than seen, with a faint wash of blue beyond. | Continue reading
Sun through a scrim of cirrus. The hillside ticks with chipmunks. Two white-breasted nuthatches call back and forth at the woods' edge. | Continue reading
Snakeroot flower heads are beginning to open, white as the cows’ milk that they’re said to poison. A sunbeam reaching the porch shows me the shape of my breath. | Continue reading
Sun floods the treetops. I sneeze so loudly it sets off the neighbor’s dog, a quarter-mile away. The scrabble of claws from a high-speed red squirrel chase. | Continue reading
Chickadee scold-calls join an agitated red squirrel above the springhouse. Nothing stirs in the deep weeds. The sun burrows into a cloud. | Continue reading
Crystal-clear and cool at mid-morning, the Sunday silence only broken by a chipmunk’s metronome and the distant rumble of a train. In a patch of sun, a cricket picks up […] | Continue reading
An hour before sunrise, in the silence before weekend traffic begins, a barred owl’s “Who cooks for you all?” followed by a screech owl’s trill. Half an hour later, the […] | Continue reading
Cloudy and damp at sunrise. Traffic is a distant rumble; one tree cricket trills. When I next look up from my book, the sky is nearly clear. | Continue reading
Cold and clear, autumnal weather continues, with a heavy inversion layer that makes the interstate sound as if it’s just above the barn. Dew drips from the roof. | Continue reading
Cool and clear with a breeze in the treetops, glossy oak leaves scintillating in the sun. A distant crow is trying to raise a ruckus, but no one joins in. | Continue reading
Too cold for all but one hardy field cricket. In the meadow, the half-grown twin fawns have a go at their mother’s milk, one on each side. A small flock […] | Continue reading
Clear and cool. One minute before sunrise, a long-tailed weasel appears at the end of the porch with a meadow vole dangling from her mouth, sees me, and disappears back […] | Continue reading
Overcast and quiet. A doe and two fawns melt into the woods when I come out. In the meadow, this morning’s bindweed trumpets are already vibrating with bumblebees. | Continue reading
The slow creak of a field cricket like a rusty winch for the sunrise. In the dying lilac I spot new mile-a-minute vines. | Continue reading
Cool and clearing. Dew drips from the porch roof onto the orange jewelweed, which this morning for the first time receives no visits from a hummingbird. | Continue reading
Gray skies. A sheen of moisture on everything. Somewhere up in the woods, a tree lets go of a dead limb. I lock eyes with the hummingbird hovering a foot […] | Continue reading
Rain starts at sunrise and tapers off a half hour later. In its wake: phoebe, pewee, goldfinch, Carolina wren. A cedar waxwing’s whistle. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast and quiet, except for the steady trill of tree crickets and a distant vireo. A catbird rustles in the silky dogwood, gorging on the deep-blue drupes. | Continue reading
Breezy and cool. The white lilac, with at least 75% of its leaves dead from disease, is bizarrely in blossom again, with at least five full-sized clusters, white as flags […] | Continue reading
An autumnal sunrise heralded by crickets. I search the bracken patch for any two fronds in the same shade of green, yellow, or brown. | Continue reading
In the wake of a quick hummingbird with her elegant wand, a bumblebee continues to work the jewelweed, clambering up into each orange throat. | Continue reading
Half a moon alone in the sky. A silent catbird flies into the half-dead lilac. Off through the forest, blinding fragments of the sun. | Continue reading
Overcast and breezy. The orange jewelweed below the porch has grown so tall, I can actually see the hummingbird visiting the topmost blossoms now—the green blur of her wings, the […] | Continue reading
A dawn chorus of tree crickets, field crickets and mole crickets. After a half-clear sunrise, the clouds move in. | Continue reading
An hour past sunrise, the first cicada call of the day stutters to a stop halfway through and resumes a half-hour later. Mosquitoes circle my feet propped up on the […] | Continue reading
Sunrise reddens the western ridge as the flat-tire moon fades, alone in the sky. Jewelweed flowers along the stream nod and sway as the first hummingbird makes her rounds. | Continue reading
Crystal-clear and still at sunrise. Dew drips from the roof. Over by the springhouse, a red squirrel and a Carolina wren are having a free and frank exchange of views. | Continue reading
Clear and cold at dawn. The nearly full moon gutters among the trees. A screech owl trills with a rising intonation, which feels like some kind of omen. | Continue reading
Mid-morning and the sun is just struggling free of clouds and/or smoke. A chicken cackles in the distance. Annual cicadas exchange raspy notes. | Continue reading
Neither hot nor cold under a clouded-over sky that’s faintly blue, permitting sunshine but not shadows. The hummingbird circling my hung-out red bandanna appears to have developed a taste for […] | Continue reading
Yesterday’s red bandanna, hung out to dry in the rafters, attracts first one, then two hummingbirds. Inevitably, they fight. The winner settles on the closest tree branch. | Continue reading
Thin, high clouds. The yellow smudge that is the sun rises to the tune of quarry trucks beeping backwards. I study the weeds where I saw a bear disappear ten […] | Continue reading
Clear, cold and still. I can’t stop gazing at the red oak seedling I found in the yard yesterday and immediately caged in a ring of deer fencing, its four […] | Continue reading
Dawn. The thermometer has dropped to 50°F (10°C). Something small and dark disappears into the tall weeds beside the driveway, setting off first one, then the other Carolina wren. It […] | Continue reading