March 2011

Thursday March 31, 2011

Dave Bonta March 31, 2011 3

Three inches of sticky snow have turned the trees white and intricate, with many moving parts: sparrows, robins, a blackbird’s creak.

Dave Bonta March 30, 2011 2

Overcast. A train whistle coming from the wrong direction. The resident naturalist stops at the corner of the wall, gets out her hand lens.

Dave Bonta March 29, 2011 2

A pair of ducks fly silently through the trees: the mallards who return every spring to nest on the mountain, a mile from the nearest pond.

Dave Bonta March 28, 2011 4

A little less cold, a little less clear as we inch toward the warm mud of April. The cardinal pays her morning visit to her glassy rival.

Dave Bonta March 27, 2011 3

The rapid scrabble of claws on bark, that waterfall sound. Three chasing squirrels spiral down the big locust like an animated barber pole.

Dave Bonta March 26, 2011 6

Clear and bracing, like a shot of vodka. The thirteen cattail heads beside the springhouse sway gently in the dawn light.

Dave Bonta March 25, 2011 2

Heavy frost, and the bare dirt in the garden has crystallized into icy turrets. Motes of snow float past, backlit by the sun. Robin song.

Dave Bonta March 24, 2011 2

A thin powder glazes all the logs and fallen limbs—white ships on a brown sea. The high-pitched whistles of waxwings passing overhead.

Dave Bonta March 23, 2011 5

Cold and dawn-dark at 8:30. The ridge disappears into cloud, allowing me to imagine real mountains—a fastness far from anything but rain.

Dave Bonta March 22, 2011 4

A turkey gobbles up in the corner of the field, and five seconds later, a turkey vulture soars into view. The sky is an implacable white.