You can tell summer is on the wane these August afternoons by what you hear—and what you don’t hear.
Gone for the most part is birdsong. Mating season has largely come and gone, so there’s no reason to be singing for a mate now. You still hear some calls and twitters, but the melodies of spring are long gone.
On most afternoons, the dominant sound is the clatter of cicadas. Their time on this Earth as adults is short to begin with and by now it’s much shorter still. But they do not go quietly. They let us loudly know of their presence before leaving the stage.
➢ Eight buzzards—yes, I know they’re correctly called vultures—are circling about a half-mile away, rising the late afternoon thermals. Must be something BIG and dead there.
➢ Big day for big butterflies today—Black Swallowtail, Tiger Swallowtail and a Monarch.
N.B. The frogs are still there, nearly six hours after I left them. One has a big turd hanging out his ass. I shined a flashlight on him and he jumped. The frog went one way and the turd went another. Guess you could say I scared the shit out of him.
08/15/06
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