Hen turkey calling at sunrise like a rusty machine pleading for oil, the tom interrupting with his usual non sequitur. A squirrel noses the stump of a freshly felled locust.
gray squirrel
Gray and still. Springs gurgle their liturgies. Looking nervously all about, a squirrel disinters a walnut and races into the woods with it.
Clear and cold. All the while the sunrise seeps down from the treetops, a squirrel files away at a rock-hard black walnut shell to extract meat seasoned by months underground.
Clouds beginning to clear by 8:00. A gray squirrel with a black walnut between her teeth is followed by three others through the treetops.
The squirrel who de-husks walnuts atop the wall next to the lilac stops short when she sees that her piles have been swept away. She noses the spots, tail flickering above her like a gray flame.
A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for gray squirrel romance: a pair ascend a young tulip tree together, touching often, and descend the adjacent walnut tree, nose to tail.
Dull mid-morning light—the threadbare snowpack is brighter than the clouds. A titmouse sounds the predator alarm and a squirrel cleaning off a walnut climbs a few feet higher into the lilac.
Snow squall. A squirrel with two pursuers ascends a birch and turns on them, chasing again and again as the snow stops and clouds turn yellow.
Gray sky raked by swaying treetops, the wind made visible by squadrons of snowflakes flying this way and that. The sound of rodent teeth.
Sky the color of faded jeans. It’s cold. The crash of a dead limb falling from the treetops where two female squirrels are eluding suitors.
Damp and not as cold. A squirrel loses a persistent follower in a treetop maze. The risen sun almost breaks through the clouds.
Fog prolongs the dawn well past sunrise. How long will squirrels keep scolding after a cat has slunk away? Ten minutes and counting.
Overcast but bright, and very quiet apart from the stream’s gurgle. Two squirrels seem to be hanging out, but only one acts amorous—the other remains focused on her walnut.
Overcast and quiet, with a fresh dusting of snow. A squirrel loses its nerve and backs off from a death-defying leap.