Gray rain clouds thickening towards 8:00. It’s very still; long moments go by without a single bird call. A beetle finds its way to the butterfly weed.
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Crystal-clear and still. At first light, the soft calls of wood thrushes, no doubt tired and hungry after their all-night flights. Pale crowds of snakeroot seem to glow.
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A few minutes after six, a whippoorwill calls from just inside the woods. At the very same moment, the first mosquito of the day finds my ear.
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After a soggy ​night, a few more raindrops and then some brightening. A vireo starts up. The lowest branch on the tulip tree has turned yellow.
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Overcast and cool. A phoebe calls a few times from beyond the spring house and falls silent. As if in mockery, a pewee’s slower, more lilting response.
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Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east​—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.
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A gray squirrel with a nearly white tail scampering up the road draws my attention to the white snakeroot—banks of it just coming into bloom.​
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Sun glimmering in a sky so light blue as to appear white. The Carolina wren’s motor sounds as if it’s running out of gas. Mosquitoes begin to circle.
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Another autumnal dawn. A screech owl trills from just inside the woods. Crows head past en route to an angry mob. The fluting of geese.
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Just after 8:00, the sun breaks through the clouds and a breeze springs up. From the powerline, the hollow knocks of a pileated woodpecker breakfasting on ants.
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Sunrise filling every cloud’s belly with pink as the Carolina wren​ trills over and over—once for each cloud, it seems.
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A mosquito rests on the arm of my Adirondack chair, watching the sunrise. A hummingbird surprised by a sudden movement buzzes toward me rather than away.​
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Leaves glistening with last night’s rain. A distant raven. The puttering of a hummingbird’s small motor. ​
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At ten minutes till sunrise, the first hummingbird buzzes in to the orange touch-me-nots. A wood thrush calls from the woods’ edge, but doesn’t sing.​
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Sun in the treetops. A Carolina wren keeps answering a flicker, as if trying to master its call. Tree crickets. A train horn.​
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Before the first birds, a thin, gaping moon. A last katydid stopping mid-creak. The whine of tires on the highway over the ridge.
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It’s raining and I’m mesmerized by the radar map, its blue and purple blobs. When the downpour begins to abate, the first thing I hear is the twittering of goldfinches.
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Drizzle in the wind even as the sky brightens. Small patches of blue ​appear and disappear. A yellow leaf spirals down into the yard.
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Showers intermittent as stragglers in a race​. This morning’s porch may stretch into the afternoon, as long as my claps keep up with the mosquitoes.
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Cloudy, but the clouds are paper-thin, so the Carolina wren bobbing on a branch casts a thin shadow.
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