black walnut

Gray and still. Springs gurgle their liturgies. Looking nervously all about, a squirrel disinters a walnut and races into the woods with it.

Clear and cold. All the while the sunrise seeps down from the treetops, a squirrel files away at a rock-hard black walnut shell to extract meat seasoned by months underground.

Clouds beginning to clear by 8:00. A gray squirrel with a black walnut between her teeth is followed by three others through the treetops.

The squirrel who de-husks walnuts atop the wall next to the lilac stops short when she sees that her piles have been swept away. She noses the spots, tail flickering […]

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 […]

Overcast but bright, and very quiet apart from the stream’s gurgle. Two squirrels seem to be hanging out, but only one acts amorous—the other remains focused on her walnut.

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.

Heavy cloud cover. A gray squirrel chiseling open a walnut squats on a low branch with its tail curled over its head for warmth.

Light rain seasoning the breeze. A squirrel perched on a swaying limb chisels open a walnut—that haunted-house sound.

Overcast, windy and cold at dawn. Soft thuds as the black walnut tree releases its ordnance onto the road.

A couple of cold nights and the yellow has spread like a contagion through the birches. A squirrel hangs down among the green walnuts.

Cold (46F) with thin, high clouds. Black walnuts knocking on the roof. A red-tailed hawk drops in to visit the squirrels.

Thick fog slowly infused with sunlight. A squirrel drops pieces of black walnut shell into the dew-soaked weeds.

Overcast with a shimmer of light rain. A red-eyed vireo still calls at the woods’ edge. The thud of a black walnut onto a roof.