A distant quarry truck’s reverse beeper has gone bad, and trills just like a digital alarm clock. Dueling chickadees tumble through the air.
chickadee
January 11, 2011
Two chickadees chase through the lilac and end up perched on adjacent twigs, ruffling their feathers—close as any pair of mobster enemies.
December 30, 2010
I stare bleary-eyed at a chickadee darting through the lilac, listen to dueting wrens. The sun, too, is blurred by a kind of mucous.
November 27, 2010
A scurf of snow in the north corner of the porch, and more flakes in the wind. A chickadee puffs out its feathers, fat as a baseball.
November 16, 2010
A true November day, cold and gray and wet. Patches of pale lichen on tree trunks glow like dim headlights in the fog. A distant chickadee.
November 10, 2010
A finger of sun infiltrates the foxtail millet, heads turned every direction but up. Three chickadees forage in the cherry, comparing notes.
October 26, 2010
When the fog lifts, a flock of chickadees moves in, foraging in the mid-canopy, precipitating a shower of birch and locust leaves.
October 12, 2010
Two titmice tumble off a branch, claws briefly locked, provoking rebukes from a chorus of chickadees. A breeze fails to disperse the fog.
October 10, 2010
The birches are astir with birds: migrant warblers, chickadees, and a kinglet darting from leaf to leaf, gold crown flashing among the gold.
February 3, 2010
A new half-inch of snow. The wind brings traffic noise from over the ridge and the nasal calls of a chickadee. A tree cracks its knuckles.
January 10, 2010
While chickadees call, a raven croaks, and snow glitters in the air, the sun steals above the horizon like a Hun, one blade at a time.
December 20, 2009
The sky takes half the morning to clear: deep blue of the almost-solstice above snowy limbs. The chickadee’s two notes in a minor key.
November 29, 2009
Soft-focus shadows from the high, thin clouds. Chickadees are calling chirree-chirrup, a car door slams, a crow goes yelling into the sun.
October 17, 2009
The hush of snow against leaves like soft brushes playing on the skin of a drum. A chickadee calls, and then a nuthatch. Dee dee. Yank yank.