Sun gleams on the rain-damp leaf duff. In the blue sky, a grackle cackles. Blue jays jeer. The lilac limbs are beginning to blush green.
February 2017
February 27, 2017
Cold and still, with a bright smudge of sun. A white-throated sparrow joins a junco in the dried stiltgrass, burrowing into it like a vole.
February 26, 2017
Cold weather has finally returned. Small birds are bathing in the stream despite the iron wind, shaking themselves dry in a dogwood bush.
February 25, 2017
Two song sparrows in a singing contest under dark clouds. I try to hear urgency and seriousness in their bubbly notes as the sky opens up.
February 24, 2017
The usual bird calls—cardinal, titmouse, red-bellied woodpecker—but something seems off. It’s the clouds, coming from the wrong direction.
February 23, 2017
So many chipmunks are racing about at the woods’ edge that after watching them for a while, I begin to feel itchy. A crow clears its throat.
February 22, 2017
Warm and still. Out of the corner of my eye, a pileated woodpecker slipping behind a tree. Distant howl of a train car’s misaligned wheels.
February 21, 2017
Weak sunlight. Dead leaves are all a-rustle, rummaged through by squirrels, voles, chipmunks, juncos. The distant cry of a maybe killdeer.
February 20, 2017
Cloudless and still. Sun gleams on the laurel under the trees. I hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel road from a hundred yards away.
February 19, 2017
Another too-warm morning: late April without the warblers. Three dried oak leaves launched into flight by the wind circle like doomed hawks.
February 18, 2017
Unseasonably warm. The sun catches on glass disinterred by frost heaving. From the valley, the cheerful pops of a semi-automatic rifle.
February 17, 2017
Bright sun, deep blue sky. A Canada goose flying over the mountain all by itself honks anyway. A small spider runs across my coat.
February 16, 2017
Bitter blasts of wind, lightly seasoned with snow. One of the trees at the woods’ edge has acquired a loud creak, but I can’t tell which.
February 15, 2017
A dusting of snow that fell while I was taking a shower has vanished again. Fast-moving clouds. On the wind, a train horn’s skewed chord.