Falling snow infiltrated by sleet—that clicking like a room full of typists. A jay has sole custody of the color blue—his two-note solo.
sleet
Friday November 09, 2018
A sudden fusillade of sleet. Just audible over the rattle: a blue jay doing its imitation of a red-tailed hawk.
Wednesday February 07, 2018
Steady sleet. A squirrel bores into the frozen earth to retrieve a black walnut, then schleps the battered, lumpy thing into the treetops.
Tuesday November 07, 2017
Mid-morning and the yard is seething with birds—chickadees, sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, titmice—foraging and singing despite the sleet.
Saturday March 18, 2017
Thick fog, and the road gray with sleet that fell in the night. Three red-bellied woodpeckers are whinnying back and forth in the treetops.
Saturday January 14, 2017
It’s still. The birds seem restless. Then the snow starts: mixed with sleet at first, then in big clumps, giving the ground a mottled look.
Saturday December 17, 2016
The whisper of sleet falling on sleet. A snowbird bursts from under my chair where it must’ve been foraging and joins the rest of the flock.
Monday December 12, 2016
Yesterday’s snowfall has been sleeted and rained on, turning the hollow from a soundproofed room into an echo chamber for traffic noise.
Sunday May 15, 2016
The leaves on the sapling tulip tree are already big enough to blow backwards. A tanager’s plucked-string call. It begins to sleet.
Sunday October 18, 2015
The thermometer’s big arrow points straight at 0°C. It was too windy for frost, but fallen red maple leaves cradle white grains of ice.