Still bitter cold, but the wind has died. Clouds redden. A phoebe snags breakfast from the bark of a tree like a nuthatch.
2022
March 28, 2022
Bitter cold at sunrise. The usual singers are subdued, except for one dove. The occasional bang of heartwood split by ice.
March 27, 2022
Winter’s back, with snow on the ground and more coming down. Juncos twitter happily. An ambulance goes wailing through the gap.
March 26, 2022
Heavy clouds except where the sun glimmers through. Snowflakes. The robin’s bright warble.
March 25, 2022
Brightness fated to be brief: already, gray-bottomed cumulus clouds are sailing in like galleons, dividing the blue between them.
March 24, 2022
Under a uniformly gray sky the same titmouse has been singing the same monotonous notes, I realize, for the past 45 minutes.
March 23, 2022
Ten-thirty and the promised rain finally begins to whisper in the dry leaves—a mountain’s worth of hush drowning out all distant engines.
March 22, 2022
Weak sun through thickening clouds. A robin and his echo. The metallic taps of a titmouse opening a sunflower seed against a drainpipe.
March 21, 2022
Deep blue sky; two degrees above freezing. As the sun climbs out of the trees, the morning chorus dies down until it’s only the Carolina wren.
March 20, 2022
Cold and gloomy—classic March weather for the equinox. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the treetops, underneath which two squirrels chase, oblivious.
March 19, 2022
Humid and cool. The sun keeps finding new holes in the clouds. The woodpeckers keep drumming.
March 18, 2022
Sun climbing through the trees into a cloudless sky. A second male phoebe has joined the first, which means three times more phoebeing.
March 17, 2022
Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
March 16, 2022
Only one, tiny patch of snow remains in view, sheltering on the north side of a laurel thicket. A cowbird’s liquid note.