Snowflakes floating down from a patchy sky, where the third-quarter moon appears and disappears. The distant fluting of geese. | Continue reading
A lull in the rains. The transition from a watercolor world to pencil-brown and charcoal-gray is nearly complete. | Continue reading
Steady drumming of rain on the porch roof. Dark trunks disappearing into fog. A classic November day. | Continue reading
A flock of juncos at the woods’ edge, between me and the sun: shining wings against dark trunks, a blinding quiver of rays. | Continue reading
Clear and cold. With the power out, morning is a logistical challenge, but when I have the time to sit, the sparrows are singing as usual. | Continue reading
5:20. Bleary-eyed smudge of an eclipsed moon above the western ridge. 6:20. Pink clouds turn orange. The first song sparrow. | Continue reading
Clear and cooler. A female cardinal flies out of a barberry bush, her bill red as the berries. Crows argue over fresh additions to the compost. | Continue reading
Daybreak. A buck sniffing the ground for signs of estrus scratches his head with a back hoof. A mosquito sings into my ear. | Continue reading
Unseasonably warm with a lowering sky. A six-point buck emerges from the woods and struts over to the stream as a doe looks on. | Continue reading
Cold sunrise. The green hippogriff of a lilac just starting to yellow. Dry leaves whispering of deer in heat. | Continue reading
Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck. | Continue reading
Sun through a scrim of cloud. From within a flame-leaved barberry bush, the crisp ticking of a junco. | Continue reading
Clouds selectively erasing the stars at dawn. A strong inversion layer: traffic noise from the interstate mingles with barred owl calls. | Continue reading
A half hour after sunrise, a rattling in the fallen leaves: raindrops! Slowly accelerating into an actual shower. Which peters out much too soon. | Continue reading
Late in rising, I’m grateful to the oaks for still holding leaves—I don’t need sunglasses. My brother texts: Savannah sparrows in the field! | Continue reading
Pale columns of sky all along the ridge. Frost as white as my breath. A rising tide of chirps and trills as sunrise draws near. | Continue reading
Cold and mostly overcast, but the rising sun strikes my face a full hour earlier due to overnight thinning of the leaves. | Continue reading
Dawn. Clouds glow with the lights from town. The great bulk of the lilac against the dark woods, trembling in the wind. | Continue reading
Heavily overcast and quiet at dawn. A low surf of crickets. From the spruce grove a half mile away, a barred owl’s hoo-aw. | Continue reading
Overcast with fog that thins out for the purported sunrise. It’s warm enough that one tree cricket trills in the herb garden. | Continue reading
High, slow-moving reefs of cloud at sunrise. The white-throated sparrows in the meadow conclude their chittering and go their separate ways. | Continue reading
Dawn. Low over the trees, the last sliver of moon like fangs of a snake trying to swallow a dark, glowing egg. | Continue reading
Clear and still. I watch the sun inch through the half-turned canopies of the oaks. A chipmunk begins his morning chant. | Continue reading
Two degrees below freezing and clear at sunrise. A falling tulip tree leaf lands with an audible tick. | Continue reading
Dawn brings a chittering of sparrows from the meadow. It’s cold. Frost edges the periwinkle leaves. | Continue reading
In the half-light of dawn, wet snow falls through the dimly glowing autumn leaves. A white-throated sparrow’s plaintive note. | Continue reading
A cold and windy dawn. The crescent moon drowns in a sorcery of pink. | Continue reading
Colors so much warmer than the air. Halfway through the morning, the sky clears. Sun in the treetops. A phoebe calls. | Continue reading
A hair above freezing. A pair of jays fresh from their ablutions ascend a flaming birch, gleaning insects on their way to the oaks. | Continue reading
Rain tapering off by mid morning. The sun even emerges for one or two seconds, setting off a crow. | Continue reading
Slightly warmer. Alarmed chipmunks go in and out of sync. The slow hegemony of clouds. | Continue reading
Sun in the treetops and a small flock of migrants just below, catching some breakfast. A chipmunk’s motor slowly runs out of putts. | Continue reading
Sunrise has been delayed by clouds, but I hold out hope. A wren tuts impatiently. A train horn blows a flat minor chord. | Continue reading
One degree above freezing at sunrise. A breeze reshuffles the walnut leaves on the porch. I find small patches of frost up by the barn. | Continue reading
Cold, clear, and quiet. The wind has almost died. Through yellow leaves, just a bit more sky. | Continue reading
Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid. | Continue reading
Another woods-edge maple has gone red. Bouncing bet still blooms beside the porch, four months on. | Continue reading
How can it be so yellow out and yet so cold? But the winter birds sound happy: chickadees, nuthatches, a red-bellied woodpecker. | Continue reading
Light rain seasoning the breeze. A squirrel perched on a swaying limb chisels open a walnut—that haunted-house sound. | Continue reading
A mid-morning break in the rain. The sun almost comes out. From up in the woods, the shrill panic of a squirrel just missed by a hawk. | Continue reading
Overcast and cold. A furious back-and-forth of chainsaws from the powerline, where a crew works to refresh the century-old clearcut. | Continue reading
Breezy, cold and clear. Perfect weather for my favorite autumn sport, watching leaves fall: those that tumble, those that plummet, those that twirl. | Continue reading
Overcast, windy and cold at dawn. Soft thuds as the black walnut tree releases its ordnance onto the road. | Continue reading
Rising late to find the sun already in the trees and the air redolent of autumn. Silhouettes of birds pass as quietly as thoughts through the canopy. | Continue reading
In the half-dark of dawn, something runs across the porch toward my feet—I scream and jump. The rabbit too appears to be discombobulated. | Continue reading
Showers give way to tentative sunlight by late morning. It’s quiet. A lone blue jay calls. | Continue reading
A couple of cold nights and the yellow has spread like a contagion through the birches. A squirrel hangs down among the green walnuts. | Continue reading
Windy and cold (40F/5C). A sudden outpouring of Canada goose music. The sun comes out from behind the only cloud. | Continue reading