May 22: Birds in fog

Sorry, I've been slipping up on the haiku-a-day lately. These early mornings birding followed by busy work days don't help my creative energy at day's end. Nor does being on an island with poor Internet connectivity, as I was last weekend and will be this coming weekend. But I'm never gone for long!

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This morning, I led a bird walk at Beech Hill Preserve in Rockport. Yes, it was pouring. Yes, we all got soaked. But there's something so invigorating about hearing thrushsong in the misty distance as we pause on the muddy trail. Or seeing a towhee looming in the fog, its striking black, white, and rufous patterning barely discernable, his song magnified somehow by the moisture in the air.

Blueberry flowers drip rain.
Magnified by fog,
towhee sings loudly.

May 20: Apple tree

Boughs laden with blossom,
fallen tree's trunk's
already cut and split.

May 16: Maple shower

I looked out the back window a minute ago and stopped in my tracks. Big drops were falling. Was it raining? Snowing? Are those drops yellow? Stymied, and worried about my eyes, I stepped out the front door. Nothing was falling on the front walk. Around back, however, those strange drops, still falling. A very localized storm, apparently. And quiet. As I walked under the big maple, the drops began to fall softly onto my shirt: a shower of yellow maple flowers, scattered by a warm breeze.

Maple showers flowers
all over the uncut lawn,
celebrating its greening.

May 15: Ducktrap River Preserve

Led a bird walk this morning on the Ducktrap River Preserve in Lincolnville. While watching warblers forage in the poplars along the edge of a restored gravel pit, we heard a Scarlet Tanager singing in the distance, that raspy melody distinctive despite the trees between us and the bird. Further up the trail in the hemlock grove, two Barred Owls flew together from tree to tree, hooting like crazed monkeys, particularly delighting the little boy who'd joined our group. And down by the river, the long, bubbling, buzzy song of the tiny Winter Wren tells us of the stone walls winding through the woods, marking boundaries of former fields.

Trees where fields once were.
Across the green distance
red tanager sings.

May 14: Vultures aloft

Emd of day: clouds roll in.
High over the mountain
eight vultures soaring.

May 13: Sunset

Home from the pizza place.

Sunset's pink reflection

flowing downriver.

Posted with Blogsy

May 12: After the rain

The rain prevented my mother and I from taking a post-Mother's Day brunch walk this morning, but it stopped in time for my husband and I to get in a pre-dinner walk this evening. As we walked around the neighborhood, each house gave off its own odor: woodsmoke from those trying to take the edge off the evening chill; cigarette smoke from some; the scent of damp crabapple blossoms from others; and the fragrance of mown grass from many.

Wet, scattered petals
and sodden clumps of cut grass.
The calm of settling dusk.