Juncos in the stream, juncos in the barberry bushes, juncos on the driveway, juncos in the lilac. Junco tracks in the snow beside my chair.
December 2012
12/30/2012
Flakes in the wind—not from the clouds, but the ground. A large, dried oak leaf curled like a boat floats down and lands on the snow.
12/29/2012
Snow piles up on branches, as if the white sky were descending on a chaos of ladders. Only a woodpecker’s soft tapping breaks the silence.
12/28/2012
Fire sirens. A wren’s burble. In a tree at the woods’ edge, two crows jeering a raven fall silent when it flies right over their heads.
12/27/2012
A fresh six inches of snow. Most tree branches have been swept clean by the wind, but the rose bush harbors a tangle of snowy canes.
12/26/2012
Has the sky been this gray all month, looking white only because there was no snow for comparison? A pair of ravens fly low over the trees.
12/25/2012
Melting snow drips onto the porch roof. A crow lands at the top of a locust, the tallest soapbox around for his predictable denunciations.
12/24/2012
A gray squirrel explores a walnut tree, nose down, following each limb to its end. I decide it’s searching for seeds cached by the birds.
12/23/2012
The no-longer-drifting snow records moonlit revels: where a vole broke cover, where white-footed mice foraged, where rabbits danced.
12/22/2012
Snow-ghosts arise and sail a couple dozen yards before the wind rips them apart. Juncos flock to dip their beaks in the stream’s dark water.
12/21/2012
A scant inch of snow turned scabrous by the rain and cold that followed it—but still the world glows, the woodpecker’s red head shines.
12/20/2012
Frost has dusted just the two rosettes of mullein leaves beside the driveway: enormous white flowers. A cottontail rabbit bounds past.
12/19/2012
A brown creeper ascends the trunk of a walnut tree, its jerky scuttling more insect-like than avian. Up on the ridge, a furious mob of crows.
12/18/2012
Over the sound of the wind, the opening note of a fire siren. Thin, cold rain flies sideways, mixed with snowflakes. The sun struggles out.