Fifteen minutes after sunrise, the cloud-lid lifts, and a bright seam appears above the horizon. A white-throated sparrow sings two notes and stops.
Plummer’s Hollow
The mountain is loud with running water; it sounds like March. Returning from hunting, the feral cat gives me a baleful glance as she slinks under the porch.
Hard rain beginning to ease by late morning. Chirps and twitters become audible. The last patches of snow line the road like litter.
The sound of running water in the darkness. Occasional soft, sparrowy chirps as the sky brightens. Then the wren’s impatience bubbles over.
A clearing sky at sunrise with the sound of running water and a wren. The snow is looking threadbare, even on north-facing slopes.
A mottled white sky with crows to the north and ravens croaking off to the south. The snowpack is soft and granular, absorbing sound.
Under a gray lid of cloud, the sound of steady dripping as roofs shed their snow. A cat lying in ambush has its cover blown by chickadees.
Sunrise stains the western ridge barn-red as the dawn chorus of crows rises to a cacophony. High in a walnut tree, a squirrel is licking its genitals.
Thin clouds at sunrise with the blue just visible, like faded jeans. A crow has a brief exchange with his echo.
Heavily overcast at sunrise, which I’m taking on faith. The sound of a Carolina wren hopping across the porch roof.
Cold and still. The mid-morning sun is a faint smudge in the treetops. A flicker flutters into a barberry bush and begins to gorge.
A fresh skin of snow on top of the crust and the deepest day-time silence of the year. I listen to the quiet tapping of a downy woodpecker halfway up the ridge.
-2F/-20C. Even under two hats and a beard, the windward side of my face turns numb. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: bleak and frost-haunted.
Back after a 10-day absence, I watch a front move in: blowing curtains of white. It’s as if winter had been waiting for me. Juncos twitter and hop.