Two degrees above freezing, with the sun reduced to a bright smudge by a thin wash of cloud. Juncos and a nuthatch forage at the woods’ edge.
juncos
Monday December 14, 2020
It’s snowing: fine flakes wet enough to cling to the smallest twigs and give each bergamot stalk a tall white hat. Juncos twitter hosannas.
Tuesday December 01, 2020
Gray snow clouds with a brief peephole for the sun. As flakes swirl down, snowbirds swirl up into the trees, egged on by a Carolina wren.
Thursday March 26, 2020
So much song from a single robin perched 80 feet up in a black locust! Down below, juncos comb through the prone stiltgrass for seeds.
Saturday January 18, 2020
A lull in the snowfall and the yard is alive with juncos, hopping around each clump of dried grass, gleaning their second breakfast.
Friday January 10, 2020
Overcast. A strong smell of sewage from the treatment plant two miles away. Juncos forage in the dead stiltgrass, chirping back and forth.
Wednesday November 20, 2019
With birds, a cold and overcast day isn’t gloomy. Their bright chirps and taps. The flashes of white when slate-colored juncos take wing.
Wednesday November 13, 2019
Juncos’ soft whistles. A white-throated sparrow’s melancholy song. The joyful shrieks of our neighbors’ four-year-old grandchildren.
Monday February 04, 2019
The snow has gone slushy, turning the hollow from a soundproof room into an echo chamber. Over the traffic noise, a junco’s cadenza.
Monday January 21, 2019
The wind has died; it’s zero. Through my balaclava and hood I can hear the excited chirps of juncos on the plowed road foraging for grit.
Saturday January 19, 2019
An almost unearthly calm, punctuated as ever by birds: woodpeckers, counter-singing wrens, a flock of juncos drinking from the dark stream.
Saturday November 24, 2018
The trees are turning silver and beginning to droop with the weight of freezing rain. A few juncos, undaunted, are bathing in the stream.
Saturday November 17, 2018
Where the stream fans out beside the springhouse, birds hop down the snowbanks and into the water to bathe: sparrows, juncos, Carolina wren.
Monday April 02, 2018
Five inches of wet snow like an April Fool’s prank that came a few hours late. The juncos at the bird feeder can twitter about nothing else.