Another flash mob of crows—a knot, a clot. (No murder yet.) A sudden snow squall and my dark jeans and coat are studded with stars.
crows
February 10, 2015
A sudden clamor of crows mobbing some unseen hawk or owl up on the ridge—that tone of righteous fury transcending language.
January 20, 2015
Two degrees below freezing, and the sky an almost uniform white except for a wrinkling in the east, like the brow of a corpse. Two crows.
December 21, 2014
Jays, crows, and a raven: the solstice soundtrack. When I open my laptop, a red bead of a ladybug is huddled among the black keys.
December 20, 2014
Christmas Bird Count! Crow, junco, white-throated sparrow. Three chickadees, two nuthatches and a cardinal. Nothing in the damn pear tree.
November 5, 2014
An inversion layer brings freight train and traffic noise to mix with rustling leaves, crow scold-calls, a chipmunk’s metronome. My music.
March 28, 2014
The grass darkened by rain in the wee hours. Two crows gad about like a human couple united by their harsh disapproval of the same things.
March 18, 2014
The tips of daffodil sprouts around the broken dog statue are starting to look a little worse for wear. The sound of a distant mob of crows.
March 4, 2014
Dialogue or mere coincidence? A crow calling from the ridge is answered syllable for syllable by a red-bellied woodpecker in the yard.
February 28, 2014
Two crows chasing a third from their territory stop in the woods above the house, the sun glistening on their glossy backs and wings.
February 18, 2014
In the midst of a near white-out, a crow caws, and the chickadees keep twittering. I shake snow from a tissue to blow my nose.
February 4, 2014
A junco separated from its flock chirps noisily in the lilac. At the edge of the field, two crows do their frantic best to gin up a mob.
January 13, 2014
A faint dust of frost on the old goldenrod stalks along the creek. A crow chases a crow, yells breaking in the middle like a boy at puberty.
December 8, 2013
At mid-morning, before the snow starts its quiet infiltration, before the hard knuckles of sleet, the distant hysteria of a mob of crows.