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In 2016 I’m doing a 365 Nature project. Learn more about the project and see all the 365 Nature posts.


In this time of great uncertainty and despair, it’s nice to know that at least the sun will continue to rise regardless of what we do to the planet. This morning was quite the sunrise too. When I opened the curtains, I could see a light cloud layer with many breaks between the clouds and I knew the sunrise would be spectacular. A short time later the lowest clouds began to turn red and pink and the stain slowly spread upwards and outwards. The sun rises further south now, so this morning the sunrise colors took over the entire south and east windows of our house. The entire sky was colorful and the black silhouettes of crows, set out for their day from their nightly roost. The eastern slope of Mount Rainier was illuminated a ghostly pink and orange and the black shapes of trees punctuated the horizon. But within a few minutes it was all over, gone like it had never visited. But I know what we saw and remember. The sun still rises.

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Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner

Kelly Brenner is a naturalist, writer and artist based in Seattle. She is the author of THE NATURALIST AT HOME: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us and NATURE OBSCURA: A City’s Hidden Natural World from Mountaineers Books, a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards and Pacific Northwest Book Awards. She writes articles about natural history and has bylines in Crosscut, Popular Science, National Wildlife Magazine and others. On the side she writes fiction.

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