Bitter wind, its shifts and cross-currents discernible in wide-spaced flakes. A chickadee’s call: the one for putting rivals in their place.
snowflakes
November 27, 2018
Light snow powdering my black sleeves. I watch a nuthatch inspect each branch of a walnut, its sideways hop and dip when it finds a morsel.
November 20, 2018
Colder than yesterday, but also brighter. Just as the sun comes out, a snow flurry blows in, silencing a nearby crow.
April 29, 2018
Below freezing. A few snowflakes swirl past. Inside, the resident mouse dashes from errand to errand, unaware that this is a day of rest.
April 17, 2018
Snow in the air and here and there on the ground: unseasonable seasoning. A gray squirrel bounds up the gray road, all smoke and tailpipe.
April 5, 2018
A phoebe lands on a branch and flicks his tail, not fooled by the passing resemblance of scattered, zigzagging snowflakes to flying insects.
March 16, 2018
Each morning arrives with a fresh coat of snow, but today’s is threadbare. For a minute or two, the wind is whiter than the ground.
March 15, 2018
A slightly warmer morning than yesterday, with fatter snowflakes floating across a bleary sun. The red-bellied woodpecker trills and trills.
March 14, 2018
Small flakes sting my cheek; ice-bound trees squeak and groan. From the feeder up at my parents’ house, the happy chatter of snowbirds.
February 8, 2018
Mesmerized by the snow, after a while I forget that that steady twittering isn’t the sound the flakes make as they fall. It’s just juncos.
February 2, 2018
The monotonous chant of a tufted titmouse. Clouds move in and seed the wind with small, round snowflakes, giving it another way to bite.
January 4, 2018
Snow in the air, and on the ground, a flock of snowbirds: hopping through the deer-scraped patches, dropping down to the stream to drink.
December 29, 2017
Steady snow from clouds thin enough for the sun to glimmer though. My pants legs are flecked with flakes small and round as grains of salt.
December 27, 2017
Snow falling from an almost clear sky: scintillations small as pin-pricks drifting on the icy breeze. The crisp chirps of foraging juncos.