Under low, heavy clouds, the air is still. I listen for the patter of raindrops but all I hear is a nuthatch, some crows, a raven’s croak.
raven
A pileated woodpecker banging its head, crows denouncing a raven, a chicken cheering for her latest egg… the local dinosaurs are restless.
Overcast with the temperature right at freezing and a faint new dusting of snow. Crows and a raven trade insults up on the ridge.
The slow, steady accumulation of dry snow. A raven flies low over the trees with something in its beak. A squirrel’s short-lived footprints.
Yet another clear, still morning. The light-drenched forest of almost-winter. Outraged crows answering the raven’s chant with their own.
Overcast and still. Ravens up in the woods sound as if they’ve discovered a gut pile, red and yellow viscera glistening among fallen leaves.
Walnuts crash down on the back roof. A raven comes croaking over the house, then returns a minute later, silent except for its wingbeats.
Sunny and humid. The strangled cries and croaks of ravens, at least four of them, wheeling just above the treetops.
Sun through thin cloud. A crow chases a raven through the treetops, dive-bombing it again and again. The raven’s furious croaks.
Sun through thin clouds. A flash of red as a cardinal emerges from bathing in the stream. Two ravens croak back and forth, high and low.
Cold and gloomy. A raven alights on a squirrel nest at the top of an oak near the woods’ edge and settles in for a minute before flying on.
-12°C with a wind. A raven high overhead is having, by the sound of it, a splendid time. I pull a second hood over my hat.
Snow flurries. A raven croaks, and I scan the sky for it without success, spotting instead an old bird’s nest at the top of a walnut tree.
Down in the old corral, a song sparrow sings the first part of his song and stops, twice. The cronk of a raven flying just below the sun.