Overcast and cool. A titmouse appears to have developed a taste for caterpillars, circling the trunk of a walnut like a nuthatch.
tufted titmouse
Tuesday March 23, 2021
The last patch of snow is sinking into the earth. A titmouse flits from branch to branch up a walnut sapling, whistling softly to himself.
Saturday February 20, 2021
Large, compound snowflakes drifting this way and that. A titmouse suddenly begins darting after them, hovering and diving like a flycatcher.
Monday February 01, 2021
Half-way through a slow snowstorm. The birds seem restless. First a titmouse, then a nuthatch land on the edge of the porch to tell me off.
Tuesday February 04, 2020
Unseasonably warm. The first half of a song sparrow’s song. Two titmice in the crabapple swipe their bills back and forth on their branches.
Tuesday December 10, 2019
A break in the rain. In the barberry bush, a titmouse shakes himself all over. A squirrel pauses on a tulip tree limb to scratch his belly.
Tuesday March 05, 2019
Sunny and cold. A titmouse call takes me back to that time one nested outside my window and woke me each morning like an elfin rooster.
Thursday January 17, 2019
Gloomy, but the birds seem excited, perhaps sensing an approaching storm. A titmouse fleeing a fight lands on a maple limb red with fungus.
Saturday March 03, 2018
Titmouse, chickadee, wren. I squint into the sun. The bitter wind rattles the cover of the magazine beside me—which, I notice, is Rattle.
Wednesday February 14, 2018
Ash-gray sky and an inversion layer making it sound as if the highway runs straight through the hollow. Above the din, a titmouse keens.
Friday February 02, 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.
Thursday December 28, 2017
I can hear a titmouse tapping at a sunflower seed 100 feet away. A truck drives up the unplowed road—the squeak of the snow under its tires.
Tuesday November 07, 2017
Mid-morning and the yard is seething with birds—chickadees, sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, titmice—foraging and singing despite the sleet.
Friday March 24, 2017
Warm sun and an inversion layer bringing traffic noise from over the ridge. Cardinals and titmice compete with the whine of truck tires.