A warm morning—53°F. A Cooper’s hawk calls, a screech owl trills, but the squirrels go on rummaging through the leaf litter. I spy a gnat.
screech owl
Right after a mourning dove’s song, a screech owl trills at the very same pitch. The sun floats free of the horizon and into the bluest sky.
Thick fog prolongs the dawn light for hours. A screech owl is answered by a pileated woodpecker, dirge giving way to second-line ululation.
At sunrise, a pair of screech owls trill back and forth, one high, one low, as orange-and-purple clouds race overhead.
Gray sky; the smell of rain. Two insomniac screech owls exchange trills. Then the low-frequency thumps of a grouse. An enormous silence.
At mid-morning, the trill of a screech owl. The sun struggles to shine; blurry shadows appear. A crow flies over quacking like a mallard.
Clear, cold, and very quiet. A distant train whistle is picked up and repeated by a screech owl. The incremental progress of the moon.
Screech owls at dawn—a wavering duet. Winged shadows meet for a second in mid-air, then perch in adjacent treetops, ruffling their feathers.
Like a familiar word in the middle of a speech in some other language: through the roar of traffic from over the ridge, a screech owl calls.
Dawn finds the first snow — a faint dusting. It’s very still. Down in the pines, a screech owl quavers. The slow footfalls of a deer.