Gray sky. A gray squirrel emerges from the tiny attic opening in the springhouse roof and falls head-first into the cattails.
2012
November 18, 2012
A heavy frost whitens tree branches fifteen feet off the ground. It’s so quiet, I can hear people talking a quarter mile away.
November 17, 2012
Cold and clear. The hissing of a nearby air compressor blots out all birdsong. It sounds like nothing so much as really loud silence.
November 16, 2012
In one and the same moment, the howl of an accelerating speedbike, a train whistle, and the quiet anxious calling of a nuthatch to its mate.
November 15, 2012
The soft-edged shadows glimmer with frost; the stripes of dim sunlight glisten. Only the Carolina wren insists on clarity, clarity, clarity.
November 14, 2012
An immature redtail studies the ground from a low limb, drops into the weeds and comes up empty. High overhead, three Vs of tundra swans.
November 13, 2012
The big tulip tree at the woods’ edge is releasing its seeds, spinning blades backlit by the sun. The cedar by the door trembles with birds.
November 12, 2012
Unseasonably warm. A raucous flock of juncos courses back and forth behind the house. Squirrels chase at top speed on the forest floor.
November 11, 2012
The fourth-quarter moon is the thinnest of Cheshire-Cat grins among the treetops. Sunrise reddens the western ridge. A nuthatch calls.
November 10, 2012
Five golden-crowned kinglets forage in the crown of a birch. In a nearby barberry, a junco ticks sporadically like an uncommitted clock.
November 9, 2012
A breeze rustles through dry leaves as loudly as a squirrel, the squirrels as loudly as deer. A blue jay’s call sounds strangely inverted.
November 8, 2012
After yet another hard frost, the lilac is at its saddest, thinning leaves hanging limp and slightly curled in the weak morning sun.
November 7, 2012
A smudge of a sun sits in the crown of the tall tulip poplar like a grotesque fruit. Bluebird and Carolina wren song: a joyous soundtrack.
November 6, 2012
The first bright sun since the leaves came down. I’m dazzled by the hillside of gleaming laurel interspersed with white flashes—junco wings.