A wet, white fur on the fallen elm limbs and the statue they destroyed. A squirrel scrambles up the snag and disappears into the den hole.
elm
10/30/2012
Calm. Sandy’s center must be close. The top half of the dead elm tree has blown down, breaking the back of the old dog statue.
10/28/2012
In the cold rain, a squirrel sits on an elm limb with its back to the trunk working on a walnut, its tail folded over its head like a hood.
9/25/2012
Four bluebirds take turns checking out the empty flicker hole in the dead elm—a winter nest site, maybe? A raven flies past, croaking.
9/12/2012
A squirrel creeps up to the flicker hole in the dead elm, but another squirrel pops out chittering and gives chase through the treetops.
8/27/2012
A pileated woodpecker comes cackling into the dead elm, then quietly gets to work: hop down the trunk a few inches, listen for ants, repeat.
6/14/2012
A black snake leaves the flicker nest-hole and begins a perilous descent of the smooth trunk, a bulge in its midsection from all the eggs.
*
See my blog post on the whole flicker-black snake saga at Via Negativa.
6/4/2012
An intruder—another flicker—quietly descends the elm, pokes its head in the nest hole and is promptly chased off by the current occupant.
5/21/2012
A pileated woodpecker lands on the dead elm right beside the flicker den hole and knocks twice. A flicker pokes her head out. He flies off.
5/12/2012
A muffled knocking from inside the dead elm. A flicker’s head pops out of a hole and flings a billful of wood chips into the sun.
5/5/2012
Thin fog. A flicker is excavating a den hole in the dead elm on the other side of the yard, his head almost disappearing into the tree.
4/9/2012
The top half of a dead elm behind the house crashes down in the wind. I remember the porcupine in its topmost branch like a crown of thorns.
12/31/2011
Warm, overcast and damp. The last bit of bark on the dead elm tree glows pale green on the outer half of a limb, a four-fingered glove.
8/27/2011
A downy woodpecker lands on the dead elm, his black-and-white feathers against the barkless trunk as startling and dramatic as a totem pole.