Cold and clear. A squirrel climbs to the top of a red maple, bites off a seed-laden twig and carries it to a lower limb—a feast of wings.
*
The Morning Porch will be on hiatus until September.
gray squirrel
A great-crested flycatcher responds to a red-bellied woodpecker’s trill. A squirrel missing half its tail fixes me with a hostile stare.
Overcast and cool. I’m outside for an hour and there’s no point at which something—chipmunk, squirrel, towhee, siren—isn’t signalling alarm.
High in the lilac, a squirrel wedges a freshly dug-up walnut between three branches, descends, climbs back, retrieves it and carries it off.
In a lull between showers, a squirrel re-buries a freshly disinterred walnut. Juncos sing as they forage, preparing for their journey north.
Sunlight at half-strength on the half-gone snow. Behind the house, a squirrel twists and rubs itself ecstatically against a rotten stump.
Silence has descended along with the snow—6 inches so far—save for the rumble of snowplows. A squirrel walks on the dry underside of a limb.
Bright and windy. Leaves skitter like crabs across the forest floor. I track an unseen hawk’s passage by the squirrel alarms it sets off.
Weak sunlight. Dead leaves are all a-rustle, rummaged through by squirrels, voles, chipmunks, juncos. The distant cry of a maybe killdeer.
Ten degrees above freezing at sunrise. A squirrel leaps through the soft snow like a salmon swimming upstream. High overhead, a raven calls.
Snow remains on the thicker limbs, making a dramatic graffiti on the dark wall of trees—erased here and there by busybody squirrels.
I watch two different squirrel entourages trailing females through the treetops until both are swallowed by a slow-moving snow squall.
Fog heightens the intrigue of January’s gray-squirrel soap opera: the slow-motion chases, the tree-top fights, the ruses to elude stalkers.
Cold and quiet but for the muffled cries of squirrels mating or fighting in the springhouse attic. A dozen snowflakes wander into the yard.