A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for gray squirrel romance: a pair ascend a young tulip tree together, touching often, and descend the adjacent walnut tree, nose to tail.
January 2023
January 30, 2023
The snowpack is holey again. A sunrise sky is visible through the trees on the ridgetop for just a few minutes until the fog descends.
January 29, 2023
Dull mid-morning light—the threadbare snowpack is brighter than the clouds. A titmouse sounds the predator alarm and a squirrel cleaning off a walnut climbs a few feet higher into the lilac.
January 28, 2023
Mid morning, and the strong sunlight reveals in every shadow-casting hummock how snugly the ground’s coat of snow has come to fit.
January 27, 2023
Snow squall. A squirrel with two pursuers ascends a birch and turns on them, chasing again and again as the snow stops and clouds turn yellow.
January 26, 2023
Gray sky raked by swaying treetops, the wind made visible by squadrons of snowflakes flying this way and that. The sound of rodent teeth.
January 25, 2023
My phone insists it’s snowing, but the clouds hold their fire. The ground is nearly bare again; it could use a fresh coat. The creek has subsided to a quiet soliloquy.
January 24, 2023
Sunrise layers of yellow and blue, cloud and clear. High in a black birch, two chickadees feed and squabble.
January 23, 2023
An inch of wet snow clinging to everything. The juncos and chickadees sound the most excited I’ve heard them in a month—which might also be due to the sun’s cameo appearance.
January 22, 2023
Sky the color of faded jeans. It’s cold. The crash of a dead limb falling from the treetops where two female squirrels are eluding suitors.
January 21, 2023
Gray sky, and the ground scrofulous with snow—an eighth of an inch. A sudden cacophony of mourning dove wings.
January 20, 2023
Overcast with short-lived bright patches in the clouds. A cardinal sings a few notes at the time indicated for sunrise. Then it’s back to the sound of the wind.
January 19, 2023
Steady, hard rain blurring the transition from night to day. How much silence there’d be if it were snow. How much more light.
January 18, 2023
Damp and not as cold. A squirrel loses a persistent follower in a treetop maze. The risen sun almost breaks through the clouds.