Tentative footsteps at the edge of the porch, first from a gray squirrel, then a Carolina wren, each obviously annoyed by my presence.
February 2021
February 13, 2021
Half an hour after sunrise, birds crowd into the crabapple beside the spring, flitting quick as thought through the network of branches.
February 12, 2021
Overcast and cold. Juncos fight over patches of dirt scraped bare by the snow plow. A chickadee investigates the undersides of branches.
February 11, 2021
Another four inches of light powder. We are rich in snow now. The soundtrack is mostly woodpeckers: downy, pileated, red-bellied.
February 10, 2021
Overcast. I contemplate the artificial mountain of snow in my yard, its boneless white. Imagine if it were blubber—how the birds would feast.
February 9, 2021
Fine snow. Cleaning the dust off my glasses, everything blurs together: white sky, white ground, the noise of trains and sparrows.
February 8, 2021
Bitter cold (-16°C) and still. The rising sun appears in a tiny gap between the trees as if this is all we’re allotted, this bristly thing.
February 7, 2021
Fine snow begins to fall. A squirrel is leaping through the treetops as if on some other white powder. Wakening nuthatches compare notes.
February 6, 2021
Sunrise and the clouds turn pink as the waning crescent moon turns pale. A squirrel way up in the woods begins its trek to the bird feeder.
February 5, 2021
One degree above freezing, and the last icicle has turned dull as the eye of a dead fish. As I watch, it trembles in the breeze and lets go.
February 4, 2021
A crow mob on the move—their angry cries. Sun stripes the snow. I hold my head still to watch the slowly shifting points of glitter.
February 3, 2021
This is winter as I remember it from my childhood: more than a foot of drifting snow at 20°F. The Carolina wren is singing under the house.
February 2, 2021
The snowstorm over, it’s quiet, except for the wind. A cardinal shelters in a barberry bush, as red as the berries had been.
February 1, 2021
Half-way through a slow snowstorm. The birds seem restless. First a titmouse, then a nuthatch land on the edge of the porch to tell me off.