The cooing turned out to be a raven—later on, it was barking like a dog. Rifle season is over, and the mountain is littered with gut piles.
December 9, 2007
Overcast and misty. Beyond the scolding squirrels, a cooing cry I can’t place. I’m absurdly pleased with the echo when I break wind.
December 8, 2007
Two degrees above freezing and the snow has lost all its magic. The roof drips. Old footprints grow round and dark as spots on dice.
December 7, 2007
White ground, white sky, and in the treetops seven crows gather for a noisy meeting. One of them keeps chanting the same, 5-syllable phrase.
December 6, 2007
Clear and very cold. I hear squirrel teeth on walnut shell. The Carolina wren’s happiness motor turns over once, twice, then putts to life.
December 5, 2007
Two nuthatches trade insults from adjacent trees, yelling through their noses like warring doormen in their blue-gray livery.
December 4, 2007
The wind no longer howls, but now the merest breeze provokes a chorus of moans and shrieks. The oaks are finally almost all naked.
December 3, 2007
Sometime in the night the rain stopped, the temperature edged above freezing, and all the new armor fell from the trees. Snow in the air.
December 2, 2007
Quiet except for the distant moan of a truck’s brakes and the staticky sound of sleet, giving way to a heavier ordnance of freezing rain.
December 1, 2007
Scarlet oak leaf: blown sideways, it still manages to get a few spirals in. Bluejay: it takes me a second to recognize its solitary note.
November 30, 2007
Rising late, I get a faceful of sun. I watch the resident naturalist’s blaze-orange vest and cap appearing and disappearing among the trees.
November 29, 2007
“Crepuscular”: such a weird word, conjuring up ancient forests, twisted mossy forms. Not this dawn, filled with the noise of trucks.
November 28, 2007
To see the sunrise, I have to walk to the edge of the porch and look west: red ridge, the gibbous moon high overhead, a pair of ravens.
November 27, 2007
Shifting patterns of gray in a sky that has just stopped raining. A crow caws seven times. Suddenly everything acquires an orange tint.