Pulling my hat down against the sun, I glimpse a brown creeper on the dark side of a trunk. Every breeze strips more leaves from the lilac.
Month: November 2019
It’s above freezing; birds bathe in the spring. A snowbird hops through the only patch of snow: on the north side of the springhouse roof.
Juncos’ soft whistles. A white-throated sparrow’s melancholy song. The joyful shrieks of our neighbors’ four-year-old grandchildren.
Cold, but without the promised snow. Against the overcast sky, the silhouettes of what can only be kinglets flitting through the birches.
Soft sunlight filtered by clouds. The pale brown seedheads of goldenrod glow, a few trembling as a mixed flock of small birds moves through.
That late-autumn smell of wet moss, leaf mould, and freeze-thawed streambank mud, lightly peppered with an American crow’s shrill cant.
-5°C. The wilted and faded lilac leaves have acquired mold-like coats of frost. A white-breasted nuthatch’s nasal two notes.
First light. A small bird who’d been spending the night in the old hornets’ nest chirps and flutters off. A light dusting of snow.