Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging cheeks.
snow
A skim of snow overnight; a front has blown in and the birds are so much quieter. But a cold, gray morning is fine for gray squirrel romance: a pair ascend a young tulip tree together, touching often, and descend the adjacent walnut tree, nose to tail.
The snowpack is holey again. A sunrise sky is visible through the trees on the ridgetop for just a few minutes until the fog descends.
Mid morning, and the strong sunlight reveals in every shadow-casting hummock how snugly the ground’s coat of snow has come to fit.
Snow squall. A squirrel with two pursuers ascends a birch and turns on them, chasing again and again as the snow stops and clouds turn yellow.
Gray sky raked by swaying treetops, the wind made visible by squadrons of snowflakes flying this way and that. The sound of rodent teeth.
My phone insists it’s snowing, but the clouds hold their fire. The ground is nearly bare again; it could use a fresh coat. The creek has subsided to a quiet soliloquy.
An inch of wet snow clinging to everything. The juncos and chickadees sound the most excited I’ve heard them in a month—which might also be due to the sun’s cameo appearance.
Gray sky, and the ground scrofulous with snow—an eighth of an inch. A sudden cacophony of mourning dove wings.
Cold rain. The last scrap of December’s snow in the yard has shrunk to the size of a handkerchief. A back-and-forth between a titmouse and a chickadee.
The ground is white again. Bright spots in the clouds that could be moon or dawn. The deep breathing of the pines.
Overcast and quiet, with a fresh dusting of snow. A squirrel loses its nerve and backs off from a death-defying leap.
A few flakes of snow. Valley sounds eddy on the wind. The sun makes an appearance among the ridgetop trees.
Hard rain beginning to ease by late morning. Chirps and twitters become audible. The last patches of snow line the road like litter.