Clear and cold, with more sky showing through the ridgetop trees. A raucous assembly of crows gives way to ravens—their resonant croaks.
raven
September 11, 2024
Another gorgeous, cool morning. Two ravens fly over at sunrise, croaking. A phoebe in the distance is just audible under the usual cascade of wren song.
June 24, 2024
Breezy, cool and clear, with chimney swifts circling high overhead and a single raven hurtling past without flapping a wing.
January 11, 2024
Under pink clouds, the harsh back-and-forth of ravens echoing off the icy snowpack. The creek has subsided a little but still hosts a full chorus of watery voices.
December 29, 2023
Mostly clear at sunrise, but clouds gather in the east before the sun tops the ridge. A pair of ravens go over with a new word: two syllables, starting hoarse and ending clear.
November 29, 2023
Bitter cold—and the silence that comes with it. I can hear a squirrel’s claws on bark halfway up the ridge. A raven croaks twice.
August 15, 2023
Leaves glistening with last night’s rain. A distant raven. The puttering of a hummingbird’s small motor.
August 9, 2023
Clear and cool at sunrise. A phoebe’s bill snaps on a slow cranefly. From high overhead, the tolling of a bell soon turns into raven croaks.
June 20, 2023
Cloudy and cool. I carry an offering of soup bones out to the ravens. A great-crested flycatcher lets loose.
April 25, 2023
Frost in the yard. How many tender young leaves will collapse and blacken at the sun’s touch? A goldfinch warbles in the treetops. A raven gargles.
March 2, 2023
The mid-morning sun in the forecast comes with a scrim of cloud, a breeze, and a raven on the ridgetop going bonk…bonk…bonk…
January 11, 2023
Still air and a heavy frost. A pair of ravens fly side by side over the porch, one calling like a crow—falsetto—the other like a death rattle.
December 31, 2022
A mottled white sky with crows to the north and ravens croaking off to the south. The snowpack is soft and granular, absorbing sound.
December 2, 2022
The frosted meadow glitters in the sun. A scrabbling of squirrel claws on bark. Off to the south, a raven croaks; to the north, crows.