The coldest morning of the autumn so far, but no frost. Pileated woodpeckers yammer in the distance as the sun climbs through golden leaves toward the moon's thin grin.

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere.

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere.

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere.

More clouds than sun, with walnut trees undressing in the wind, and the leaves on the porch turning over like restless sleepers. The periodic bang of a walnut landing on the back roof is loud as a gunshot.

YouTube video by Musk

Overcast at dawn. A great-horned owl calls in the distance. A train horn at the Plummer Hollow crossing blows a major-key chord with a passing resemblance to the old Windows start-up music.

Cold and clear before dawn. I lean forward to tie my boots in the light of the half moon, then sit back in deep shadow. A barred owl calls once, twice. Orion lies on his side above the ridge—a hunter half out of bed on this, the opening day of deer season.

Breezy and warmish with a few thin, high clouds. A fly walks slowly across the open document on my laptop. From up in the woods, the plaintive call of a spring peeper already attuning himself for next spring, as his body prepares for months of dormancy under the leaf duff.

Heavily overcast skies prolong the lingering darkness till well past sunrise, but eventually the duetting screech owls and the all-night migrants softly calling from the woods' edge fall silent, the crows disperse, and the wren, one imagines, must be off busying himself with matters of great import.

Sunny and still at mid-morning, with backlit leaves at the woods' edge looking even yellower than they are. The throb of a distant engine. Squirrel teeth chiseling open a walnut. A common yellowthroat pipes up.

Overcast and still. A gray squirrel stashes a husked walnut five feet off the ground in the crotch of a lilac stem—the first I've actually seen one do this, though I've noticed walnuts stashed in shrubs and assumed it was the work of squirrels. Or perhaps just this particular squirrel, unconvinced of the need for burial.

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…

An unprecedented lawsuit from Iranian-American families challenges Trump’s ability to wage war without Congress.

Overcast and still. The bracken in the yard has all turned brown and the stillgrass is reddening, revealing the dark green leaves of a new volunteer spicebush.

Bedmond, Hertfordshire: The entire Serge Hill project is a haven for humans and wildlife, and there’s much to find in its collection of drought-tolerant plants

the destroying angel's frilly scarf

Breezy and cool, with occasional outbreaks of sunshine. It takes me two hours to work out that the soft clucking sound I'd thought was a hen turkey is actually a branch rubbing against the gutter for the back roof. A chipmunk rummages under my chair, then scuttles back under the small woodpile next to me.

YouTube video by Napalm Records

Cool and mostly clear, with a wind that keeps the shadows in motion—and the blue jays, too. Each hard gust brings another few acorns rattling down, and the driveway is filling in with walnuts.

Clear and cold. The high-pitched kik-kik-kik of a sharp-shinned hawk elicits a chirr from a red squirrel and a furous denunciation from a crow at the compost pit.

Clear and cold, with an inversion layer bringing quarry and highway sounds out of the east. A female Carolina wren ticks quietly from the thick shrubbery around the springhouse. Cold as I am, I luxuriate in the absense of mosquitoes.

a silent warbler's blend of green and yellow

Breezy and cold, with the last few clouds moving off by 9:00: a morning for blue jays and the random marimba-sound of acorns dropping onto rocks and logs.

Drizzle thinning into wind-blown mist by mid-morning. The sky brightens. A pileated woodpecker clings to a skinny locust tree as it sways in the breeze, taps a few times and then tilts her head to the side as if listening for a response.

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…

A gloomy morning, except for the wren: the dull mechanical songs of the quarry, the low cloud ceiling, the cold breath of autumn making leaves tremble on their stems.

Off and on rain and the sporadic crashes of falling walnuts. I watch a yellow tulip tree leaf tumbling down, end over end, the air slipping through its four Mickey Mouse fingers.

Overcast and quiet. A few drops of rain patter in the grass and dead bracken. The enthusiasm of a Carolina wren up by the garage seems wholly unwarranted.

Overcast and cool. A pileated woodpecker flies into the dead top of the tallest black locust in the yard, seemingly oblivious to a swirling conflict between a small flock of local jays and two migrant sharp-shinned hawks. A slow inspection of the treetop turns up nothing worth tapping for, and she flies off, leaving the tree to the jays.

Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys: “morning put me into debt I surrendered my answers // silent as money this heart little bull in a well”