Mizzle: the wet feet of a cloud that slowly settles over the glowing trees, the lone, anxious jay, the clarinet voices of wild geese.
blue jays
Half an hour past sunrise, three sharp, rising notes turn out to be from a blue jay, who quickly switches to the familiar, declarative mode.
Cold and clear. Jays call up in the woods: at least one oak must’ve defied the drought and held on to its acorns.
A tiger swallowtail visiting garlic mustard—wan white flower heads momentarily covered in glory. A blue jay yells from the highest treetop.
Snow fine as fingerprint powder; it’s almost zero. Two cardinals and a jay in the crabapple tree wait their turn to drink from the spring.
A corvid morning: crow, raven, and jay under a heavy gray sky. The half-cooing, half-scolding sound of gray squirrels in courtship.
Scattered blue holes in the clouds open and close again, despite what feels like a clearing wind. A jay does his best imitation of a hawk.
In my left ear, the sound of traffic going through the gap. In my right, white-throated sparrow, nuthatch, raven, jay. It looks like rain.
Falling snow infiltrated by sleet—that clicking like a room full of typists. A jay has sole custody of the color blue—his two-note solo.
A sudden fusillade of sleet. Just audible over the rattle: a blue jay doing its imitation of a red-tailed hawk.
Cold and heavily overcast. A jay switches from his own call to red-tailed hawk, then chickadee. In the meadow, white-throated sparrows.
Thin fog. A lone blue jay’s querulous call. A tiny white moth flies past, its wings a blur. One expects to hear the purr of a tiny motor.
A blue jay flies across the sun, wings momentarily turning white. I see that the Virginia creeper on the springhouse roof has gone rust-red.
It’s warm. A blue jay cycles through its repertoire of complaints. The first paper wasp of spring lands on my shoulder with a gentle tap.