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.
American crow
Thin clouds at sunrise with the blue just visible, like faded jeans. A crow has a brief exchange with his echo.
The frosted meadow glitters in the sun. A scrabbling of squirrel claws on bark. Off to the south, a raven croaks; to the north, crows.
The sun finally clears the ridgetop at 8:00. A crow at the compost has an exchange with a raven high overhead: caw caw caw ARK ARK ARK etc.
Clear and cooler. A female cardinal flies out of a barberry bush, her bill red as the berries. Crows argue over fresh additions to the compost.
Rain tapering off by mid morning. The sun even emerges for one or two seconds, setting off a crow.
Deep blue sky with last night’s rain still glistening in the understory. In the sun-drenched canopy, four crows sit yelling at a raven.
Sitting on the ridgetop I become subject to the crows’ concern. A pileated woodpecker veers from its course. The sun comes up.
It’s actually cold—54F/12C! A crow at the top of the tallest locust where the sun strikes has one thing to say and she is saying it.
Bare branches mellowing the sun’s blaze. Two crows fly into the woods and one flies out. There are eight million stories in the naked forest.
Rain tapping on the porch roof. Robin song echoes off the hillside. From down-hollow, the sound of a crow mob.
The sky clears at about the same rate as caffeine clears my head—a transitory state, no doubt, and host to a mob of crows.
Gray with occasional showers. Distant crows. The face that I can’t unsee in the big red maple trunk with its expression of perpetual dismay.
Instead of the gloomy morning I was expecting, the sky’s clear and there’s a fresh inch of dry snow. The crows are still exclaiming over it.