Out before sunrise to watch a thunderstorm that never appears. The clouds half-clear. Squirrels go about their business.
gray squirrel
August 25, 2022
Clear and cold. A squirrel joins the sun at the top of a scarlet oak Dad and I planted 25 years ago, now laden with acorns.
August 23, 2022
Clouds gravid with rain at sunrise. A wood thrush calls quietly. In the top of the tallest oak, a squirrel’s silhouette begins its descent.
July 11, 2022
Sunlight dulled by high haze. A squirrel in the garden grooms its genitals, then pulls a soapwort blossom close for an almost-kiss.
July 1, 2022
I watch a new squirrel figure out the tree-to-tree route out of the woods, backtracking, sizing things up. The sun goes in.
June 21, 2022
One gray squirrel shadows another, nose to tail, down the gray driveway. Mid-morning thunder. A patter of rain.
June 4, 2022
Three squirrels are having a to-do on the porch as if I’m not here, running back and forth under my chair. A deer in the driveway turns her head to watch.
April 8, 2022
Crystal-clear. Treetops stained with sun. A gray squirrel pours itself into the lilac. The creek’s full-throated chorus.
April 1, 2022
After sunrise, a brief interval of soft light before rain clouds close in. The tulip tree hosts a slow-moving ménage à trois of squirrels.
March 20, 2022
Cold and gloomy—classic March weather for the equinox. A Cooper’s hawk calls from the treetops, underneath which two squirrels chase, oblivious.
February 23, 2022
Unseasonably warm and overcast. Up in the woods, squirrels nose through leaf duff newly liberated from the snow. A few drops of rain.
February 4, 2022
Dawn, and all the stream’s voices are raised. A squirrel finds a black walnut sticking out of a snowbank and races off with it.
January 29, 2022
Cold and quiet. A junco foraging in the stiltgrass chirps after every beakful. A five-squirrel parade snakes past the yard: mating season.
January 23, 2022
A warmer morning, and all the birds are calling: Carolina wren, robin, crows, a flicker. Squirrels chase back and forth across the snow.