A fresh half-inch of snow, and the ground’s as white as the sky again. From over the ridge, the roar of a Monday morning. A blue jay jeers.
blue jays
November 5, 2024
Up on the ridgetop to watch the sunrise, seven distinct layers of red in the smog over State College, itself hidden by another wooded ridge. A jay wakes up and screams like a Hollywood eagle.
November 3, 2024
The sun rises an hour earlier, heralded by the usual motley assortment of sparrows, wrens and corvids. The stratosphere breaks out into a rash of clouds.
October 12, 2024
Partly cloudy and almost warm. The jays are having heated conferences overhead, with strangled cries and jeers. A few more leaves catch rides on a passing breeze.
September 21, 2024
Jays, then crows, then jays again: my kind of singers, harsh as life itself or hoarse with joy. The sun glimmers through high, thin clouds.
September 8, 2024
Breezy and cool at mid-morning. A blue jay’s rusty croon in the crown of an oak. The plop of dropped acorns.
August 21, 2024
Clear and cold, with an inversion layer making the hollow noisy with traffic. When it wanes: church bells. A blue jay’s distress call.
January 24, 2024
Damp and cold. Snowmelt drips from the roof. A blue jay makes a half-hearted hawk-scream and fall silent.
October 3, 2023
Moon above, mist below, and the treetops shot with sun. Jays call back and forth, acorns filling the pouches in their throats.
September 28, 2023
Clear and cold, with sound out of the east: the rumble and squeal of a slow freight train. Jays jeer. A wren puts the kettle on.
September 20, 2023
Clearing enough by 8:00 for the sun to nest in the treetops. Highway noise subsides, giving way to the knocks and clatter of falling walnuts and acorns, the scold-calls of chipmunks, the jeers of jays.
November 3, 2022
Cold and clear at sunrise, with sound out of the east: the quarry’s daily grind instead of the interstate. A jay answers a reverse-beeping truck.
October 14, 2022
A hair above freezing. A pair of jays fresh from their ablutions ascend a flaming birch, gleaning insects on their way to the oaks.
September 25, 2022
Showers give way to tentative sunlight by late morning. It’s quiet. A lone blue jay calls.