sunlit moments

sunrise:  5:57

When I walked outside this morning - 23 degrees, frosty ground, cloudless sky- I was content but unimpressed.  The vast blue bowl of sky overhead can feel either very enclosing or completely fathomless when there is absolutely nothing in it; it lacks perspective.  In the same way, the pre-dawn and dawn displays that clouds offer are absent. 

I figured it might be a no-photo morning, but I did take this one of the crescent moon rising.

Once again the blossoming day offered me much more than I had anticipated.  Sometimes the best part of the sky show is pre-dawn, about 15 minutes before the sun comes up.  Other days it is the sunrise itself.  And then there are days like today, when the first light of the morning sun hits the world and I can hardly bring myself to go back indoors.

I took 73 pictures.  But I'll only subject my blog friends to a selection of my favorites.   For those of you who find a surfeit of photos a bother - I do apologize.  I couldn't help myself.  I can only celebrate the fact that this world still stirs me so deeply!

pre-dawn glow

experiment with light - same photo here and below, just before the sun breached the horizon

Here comes the sun, over the barren fields of March

The dawn light casts a gentle glow on graceful trees...
 

...as the sun rises higher

Here is the infamous bird that I keep mentioning.  It is NOT a cardinal.

I am quite sure (but not 100%) that it has a tufted head.  Can you see the puffed chest as it sings?  (in the crook of the branches - center photo)

it sings a long descending "piiiiuuuuu"

Any help here?

Kate must be featured now and then - she is loyalty personified. (caninified)

I wish my camera could have picked up the sparkling frost that glittered in the sun all across this field.  But it still has a kind of textured beauty.

Kate and I

Can you make out the bird in this one?  It is behind the upper of the two parallel thick branches tilting to the left, about a third of the way down.  Another bird just like it had just popped into the hole on the main trunk.

I don't know what they are, and their song is entirely new to me.

I also heard a blue jay's soft mating call.  So sweet!  especially compared to its usual harsh cry.  He moved too quickly for my camera.

Happy dogs. 

 And even this tangled mess of bracken is given a kind of warm loveliness in this exquisite light.

It is reassuring to get these reminders that it is always worth getting up in the morning.