With my hat pulled down, I miss whatever winged predator suddenly sets the squirrels off. Maybe it knows how to use the low sun as a cover.
gray squirrel
Wednesday November 18, 2020
Overcast and cold. A squirrel is picking up fallen black walnuts, removing their rotten husks, and burying them in the half-frozen yard.
Sunday November 15, 2020
A break in the gloom as a thin spot in the clouds crosses the sun. Two squirrels locked in combat fall 20 feet to the ground like an enormous fruit.
Friday November 06, 2020
Deep blue sky. A squirrel is making unusually exuberant, risky leaps from tree to tree, flinging herself into space, trusting in twigs.
Thursday November 05, 2020
Mackerel sky like a furrowed brow. One, three, six blue jays descend on the feeder. The squirrel flees. One jay screams like a hawk.
Tuesday October 20, 2020
Under a low cloud ceiling, the thunder of trains and traffic from the valley. The black cat’s deadly silence trips a gray-squirrel alarm.
Sunday October 18, 2020
A squirrel on the porch spots a squirrel in the yard, who freezes. S/he walks slowly under my propped-up legs and down to a silent meeting.
Sunday September 27, 2020
A walnut falls from a maple tree. Squirrel as surrealist. The mid-morning fog beginning to glow.
Thursday September 24, 2020
Two squirrels trace a fast single helix down the trunk of the big maple. The typewriter rattle of their claws.
Wednesday September 23, 2020
A warmer morning; the blue sky harbors an ever-so-slight suggestion of haze. The sound of rodent teeth chiseling open a black walnut.