The roadside scraped bare by the plow draws all the juncos, foraging and chittering. A house finch lands on a spandrel and glares at me.
Plummer’s Hollow
The strong sun turns snow cascading from branches into gauze. In the deep blue sky, a distant jet, and the harsh, wild cries of a raven.
Fine snow settling over everything. From up in the woods, strange, high-pitched cries. Two crows fly off. The snow thickens.
Silence broken only by the wind for many minutes, until the fire alarm goes off in town: once, twice, three times rising from moan to wail.
The monotonous chant of a tufted titmouse. Clouds move in and seed the wind with small, round snowflakes, giving it another way to bite.
A few degrees above freezing; the ground’s thin coat of snow already looks mangy. I spot a tiny fly walking purposefully across the porch.
In the stillness, the rasp of squirrel teeth. Then the hollow thonk, thonk of a dropped walnut hitting the limbs of an oak on its way down.
A fresh inch of snow. In the weak sunlight and bitter wind, three juncos huddle in a barberry bush above the stream, taking turns to drink.
The same sort of day as yesterday, but so many more bird calls! A chipmunk emerges and goes on an inspection tour of the old stone wall.
The cloud ceiling—as meteorologists call it—grows thin, judging by the sun’s intensifying glow. Agitated song sparrows chirp back and forth.
Saturday sounds from down-ridge: crows, a chainsaw snarling and muttering, a pack of dogs—or is it wild geese, somewhere above the clouds?
As the sunlight advances, the frosted yard turns from glitter to glisten. The barn-red cardinal’s inexplicably cheerful two-note tune.
The stream gurgles like a bird: two ways at once. On the far side of a snag, a knock I take for a woodpecker, though it could be anyone.
Winter’s back. You can see it in the dash of snow and thick crust of clouds, hear it in the train’s horn and the querulous cries of crows.