Almanac II

5.22.26 The Almanac returns for another summer.

Here begins another edition of the Almanac. Last year I posted one day’s notes each week; this year I’ll post a compendium of a week’s action each Friday, so you can follow the triumphs and defeats of the natural world almost in real time.


Monday, May 18, 2026
80 degrees, 7:15 a.m.

I have fallen in love, again, with a place. That is, I’ve renewed my vows.

Our first morning back since October. The immense quiet belying the animal mysteries playing out all around us, in the hidden corners of the garden, across the meadows, in the dim forest. 

On my first walk, the cacophony of little birds greets me as I approach the forest, and then, before I can even focus my binoculars, in a great feathery rush the brilliant bossy pileated flies out from the trees and wavers over West Meadow, then vanishes into the West Forest.

And then, I hear, then see, a tiny bird, no bigger than a teacup, singing its heart out on a high branch. I think it’s a yellow warbler (Dendroica petechia) and my listening device confirms that. They winter from Mexico down to Peru, then somehow fly the thousands of miles here to sing for us. 

Back at the house, the phoebes have returned to their original, and to our human view proper, nest on the back porch.

Tuesday, May 19, 2026
70 degrees, 6:40 a.m.

At the forest’s edge I stop, lift the binoculars, and my stomach clenches in fear as I hear a big flushing sound from the underbrush---oh no, could it be a dog? It isn’t. A big doe rises up and canters off into the deeper woods. She and I are united in the fear she’s generated in me; is this what drives hunters, too, to be in relation to the wild world, to affect it, to feel that it’s affecting you? 

Across West Meadow, bobolinks and goldfinches bob and dive, bob and dive, 

and I’m alive, alive, alive. 

On the pergola outside the studio, a phoebe flits up and back, catching bits of garden twine left from last year’s climbing hops. Is this one from the back porch nest, or another pair? 

The temperature will go past 90 degrees today, and we’ll go to an air-conditioned movie theater to see a movie with talking sheep.

Wednesday, May 20

In the evening, an enormous hare at the edge of the un-mowed square bed; the grasses there are so tall even this big bunny’s ears barely reach the tops. There is much mowing to be done

.

Thursday, May 21
6:21, 58 degrees

The heat has abated, and now we put on our sweatshirts and our socks, as if swerving back in time. Or, as Peter says “That was a short summer.”

On the walk: northern yellow warbler, bobolinks, redwings.

A knocking at the studio door: a bluebird fluttering against the glass, as if asking for entry. It goes, then comes back, and I draw the shades, but whenever I open them, it returns. What does it want? The wrens’ nest is above this door, in the clay drainpipe I brought back one year from Mexico. But the bluebird doesn’t seem interested in them. 

Sometimes a bird will see its reflection in the window glass, and fly toward this other bird, and crash. 

Friday, May 22
6:05, 45 degrees Smeary cirrus clouds veiling a weak sun

It’s so cold my fingers clench around the binoculars as I walk toward the county line, my 500 meters of road. A smaller rabbit hops toward the vegetable garden.

This morning, at first it seems all the birds have stayed in bed, the way I should have, but soon, at the forest edge, the air fills with song: bobolink and three warblers (yellow, blue-winged, and prairie) and the inimitable, glorious, common, song sparrow, the notes billowing up from the brushy area. The song sparrow’s the only one I see.

Down by the county line, a bluebird. Could there be two pairs so close to each other? Must investigate. 

On my way back, three deer rise from behind the screen of trees in the forest, in the fairy ring, close to the road but not in a hurry, and sedately walk off, away from my human smell. Maybe they were huddled around a space heater there in the fairy ring.

And then I see, near the studio, the first poppy blooming bravely against the cold, from seeds Peter brought before I knew him, from his mother’s garden in Leeds. How does that skinny stem support that big and glorious head?