Overcast. Two ravens glide along the ridge, circle back and land in the treetops. A hunter in gray forest camouflage emerges from the woods.
raven
October 12, 2015
Another cool and cloudless morning. The hollow echoes with the croaks of ravens. A pileated woodpecker taps on the side of my house.
September 24, 2015
Another cloudless morning. Chipmunks chase each other through a bar of sunlight on the forest floor. The distant, metallic calls of a raven.
September 19, 2015
Even unseen, the raven crying rawk rawk from high overhead makes the flat white sky more interesting. In the yard, a monarch’s regal orange.
March 3, 2015
I come out to find my chair at the end of the porch and turned to the north. A jay is doing his best to reply to a raven’s imperious croaks.
February 6, 2015
The only tracks on the road are mine, and the only clouds are right where the sun is. I hear heavy wingbeats followed by a raven’s croak.
January 16, 2015
A raven croaks somewhere above the ridge. Snow fine as flour. A Brownian cloud of small birds scuds over the treetops: pine siskins.
December 26, 2014
The sky is clearing, the low-angled, mid-morning sun illuminating the woods for minutes at a time. Finches in the birches. A distant raven.
December 21, 2014
Jays, crows, and a raven: the solstice soundtrack. When I open my laptop, a red bead of a ladybug is huddled among the black keys.
November 2, 2014
Windy and overcast, with a few flakes of snow in the air. Yellow leaves peel off the aspens as I watch. Two ravens croak back and forth.
April 29, 2014
Two ravens in the rain. One flies off to the south and the other lands on a dead branch. It breaks, and the bird flies off to the north.
April 19, 2014
A red-tailed hawk spirals high on a thermal over the powerline. When I stand up, a raven takes off behind the house—the noise of its wings.
April 6, 2014
A cool, cloudless morning. A raven flies over the house headed south, his loud cronks shattering the Sunday silence. Today will be warm.
February 25, 2014
The nasal alarm calls of nuthatches, one to the south and one to the north. The sun is a yellow stain on a white tablecloth. A silent raven.