Overcast. A song sparrow’s song. Chipmunks break their habitual solitude to dash across the hard snowpack, fighting, looking for mates.
Plummer’s Hollow
The sun grows and shrinks as the clouds change in thickness. Two wrens pop out at once from under the porch, one on each side—vociferous.
The remains of last night’s ice drip from the trees. A fine lacework of lilac shadow rocks back and forth beside the broken old dog statue.
Snowstorm. A Carolina wren pokes along the side of the house under the porch roof, right above my head. Sometimes it’s good to be ignored.
Tossing my apple core out for the squirrels, it thuds and skitters across glare ice. The usual birds with the usual calls; a bit more echo.
Snowflakes blown off the roof mingle with first-time fallers. A few trees rock back and forth as if trying to rile up the crowd.
Today the icy snowpack can just support my weight. Crows down at the end of the field remind me of Twitter: two’s company, three’s a mob.
Deep blue sky. A small cloud forms right where I’m gazing. In my garden, a rock has melted the snow around it as if it’s alive.
Drip and chitter: the snow is melting, and up at the other house, the birds must be finding seeds that had been buried beneath the feeders.
Bright and cold. Echoing off the ice, the back-and-forth love notes of pileated woodpeckers bashing their heads against dead tree limbs.
In the blowing snow, a mixed flock of winter birds drifts into the currant bushes, trailed by the resident jay and his one rusty note.
Snow mixed with sleet like a good cop-bad cop routine: the reassuring suggestion of starting over with a clean sheet, that menacing hiss.
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I watch a chipmunk awoken from hibernation racing from covert to covert through the inch-deep snow.
Cold and still. The clouds thicken so slowly, it’s impossible to say in which minute the sun goes in. A crow gives a single, strangled cry.