Overcast and cool. The mid-morning quiet is broken by a fight between titmice, the two protagonists going at each other all around the yard, followed by a noisy chorus of other titmice and chickadees.
tufted titmouse
Weak sun through a sky more white than blue, where a plane is circling a thousand feet overhead. A tufted titmouse foraging on the thawed earth flies up into a spicebush to prize open a seed.
Warm and damp. A rain shower passes through while I scroll the headlines. A tufted titmouse turns up the volume on his spring song.
Not a cloud in the sky, and many of the scattered white patches on the ground won’t last till tomorrow. The monotony of crow takes over from the monotony of a tufted titmouse.
Cold and still. When my furnace rumbles to a stop, the only sound is a distant titmouse. A sneeze gathers in my sinuses: my explosive homage to the rising sun.
Wind hissing in the pines. A titmouse’s monotonous call. The distant tone cluster of a train horn. A white-breasted nuthatch pipes up.
Cold and mostly clear. Barely audible above the red-eyed vireos and scarlet tanager, the minor-key call of a titmouse—that wintry sound.
Clear and cool at sunrise. A feral cat slinks through the coverts at the woods’ edge, pursued by a small, mostly silent entourage of chickadees and titmice.
A few degrees above freezing at sunrise. A titmouse’s monotonous song. The clouds turn orange and drift off like boats into the blue.
Two fresh inches of mostly sleet, with its bleak magic of turning from sand to concrete. A titmouse by the springhouse sings his most mechanical song. A distant crow.
Rain and fog shut out all sounds from the valley; a gobbling turkey and a pair of pileated woodpeckers are the loudest things. A titmouse sheltering in the lilac shakes the rain from his wings.
Gloomy sunrise, with a cloud snagged on the treetops, leaking rain. A titmouse takes advantage of a lull in the chorus to hype his own claim. A tanager’s plucked string.
The sun finally clears the one, thin cloud above the horizon only to disappear into a thicket. The robin has taken a break, so the titmouse holds forth.
The sun climbs through bare trees while I’m not looking, lost in blue like the titmouse with his endless diatribe.