Heavily overcast with a steady drip of snowmelt. From one valley, the sound of trains; from the other, a killdeer. A snow goblin left by the plow topples over into the road.
killdeer
February 26, 2021
A red-tailed hawk dives at a squirrel just as I come out. Then woodwinds: a V of geese followed by tundra swans. The first killdeer’s cry.
March 29, 2019
Warmish and rainy. From the valley to the east: a great blue heron with its sword-blade wings, its spring-loaded neck. A killdeer’s call.
May 5, 2018
Black-throated green warbler. I fetch my chair from the creek where the storm blew it. High over the neighboring valley, a killdeer’s cry.
February 21, 2017
Weak sunlight. Dead leaves are all a-rustle, rummaged through by squirrels, voles, chipmunks, juncos. The distant cry of a maybe killdeer.
March 16, 2016
Overcast and damp. The distant calls of a killdeer, returning from migration and spying the valley’s alluringly barren fields.
March 15, 2016
At first light, off in the fog, the weird, nasal calls of timberdoodles. One launches into the air with a whistling of wings.
March 14, 2016
Sound is out of the east: quarry trucks and grinders. In the gray woods, gray squirrels glide silently over the rain-slicked leaf duff.
March 13, 2016
Rain. In the marshy corner of the field, the duck-like calls of wood frogs, just up from their cryogenic sleep and already fully aroused.
March 12, 2016
Bright sun. From the valley, four gunshots in quick succession, followed by silence. A phoebe circles the house singing, as if sizing me up.
March 11, 2016
Sunrise tints the clouds orange. I squint through eyelids made bleary with pink-eye and lack of sleep. A downy woodpecker’s soft rattle.
March 10, 2016
Cloudy and warm. The first phoebe calls echo off the ridge like buzzy, two-note alarm clocks set for spring.
March 9, 2016
Strong sun; vociferous crows. It’s astonishing how many strands of spider web and caterpillar silk still shimmer in the trees.
March 8, 2016
Sunny and warm. A bluebird is warbling up by the barn and a song sparrow sings next to the springhouse.