Clouds gather in the east, glowing brightly as they smother the sun. A west-bound freight rumbles through the gap. Bits of walnut shell rain down from a squirrel’s breakfast.
gray squirrel
October 28, 2025
Heavy frost in the yard. A few, faint clouds disappear after sunrise, as squirrels climb high into the wine-red crowns of oaks.
October 23, 2025
Gray skies with a bitter wind. Colored leaves fly past. A pair of gray squirrels meet on the trunk of a black locust and touch snouts.
October 15, 2025
Bright periods alternate with gloom on a cool, cloudy morning, with an intermittent breeze paging through the tulip tree leaves. A sound like the clacking of a typewriter as a squirrel trots across the metal roof overhead.
October 13, 2025
Steady rain from heavy clouds, with the seeming glow of orange and yellow leaves in lieu of a sunrise. A drenched gray squirrel beside the porch peers up at the sky.
October 10, 2025
Cloudy and cold at mid-morning. The high lisp of a brown creeper at the woods’ edge. In the distance, a gray squirrel is airing a complaint about a hawk.
October 5, 2025
Clear and very quiet at dawn. Some scattered towhee tweets. The thump of a walnut dropped by a half-awake squirrel.
September 24, 2025
Rain in widely scattered drops, a light seasoning over everything. It intensifies; a half-molted walnut tree begins leafleting the yard. It tapers off. A squirrel chisels open a nut.
September 20, 2025
Cloudy and cool. The shed skin of a rat snake has blown off the back roof and dangles in the branches of a walnut. In the next tree over, a gray squirrel walks to the end of a limb, sniffing each walnut, and picks the one at the very end.
September 19, 2025
Sun through thin cirrus. Half an hour of a hawk hunting the yellow woods and I have yet to catch a glimpse, tracking its movement only by squirrel and jay scold-calls.
September 17, 2025
Cloudy and cool with a 100% chance of falling walnuts—though admittedly, some are being dropped by squirrels. A red-bellied woodpecker keeps up an anxious commentry.
August 2, 2025
Sunny and cold. The woods are quiet. A red-eyed vireo sings in the middle of the yard. A gray squirrel’s hawk alarm goes off.
May 6, 2025
Foggy at sunrise. A turkey gobbles non-stop from up in the field, and the woods ring with vireos and ovenbirds. At the edge of the porch, a gray squirrel nuzzles her almost-grown offspring.
May 2, 2025
Overcast and damp, with the intense green of new leaves everywhere. Two doves moan in different keys. A squirrel carrying a walnut walks down the road out of sight.