Zero at dawn, and very quiet. Finally a nuthatch pipes up, followed by a junco. From inside the tall locust tree behind the springhouse, the muffled scolding of red squirrels.
white-breasted nuthatch
December 23, 2024
Deep cold, with hoarfrost silvering every twig and dead weed. The sun clears the ridge and spreads glitter among the icicles. A white-breasted nuthatch begins to kvetch.
December 12, 2024
Bitter cold. A few small clouds turn brick-red. When the wind drops, there’s a staccato burst of pileated woodpecker alarm, answered only by a nuthatch.
November 24, 2024
Light rain at sunrise swept away by a light breeze, the monochrome sky accented by a pair of ravens, and down here a nuthatch going over the rules.
September 26, 2024
Overcast and damp. Anxious notes from a nuthatch following the crash of a rotten limb up in the woods where a screech owl had been trilling.
September 19, 2024
8:00 o’clock church bells and the fog has nearly all lifted. A nuthatch calls down by the stream, soon joined by chickadees. From my mother’s house, the measured voices of NPR.
March 18, 2024
Blue above the cloud bank blocking the sunrise. At the woods’ edge, white-breasted nuthatches are having a free and frank exchange of views.
February 8, 2024
Dawn clouds stacked liked a ladder of blood. Chattering nuthatches. A dove’s breathy song sounds far from mournful.
December 31, 2023
The cloud ceiling briefly switches to faint pastels: sunrise. One yammering nuthatch and, from down in the hollow, a screech owl’s soft trill.
October 26, 2023
Sunrise: pink and orange in the sky as on the hillside. A white-breasted nuthatch punctuates a white-throated sparrow’s song.
September 6, 2023
A nuthatch calling just inside the woods. From the barnyard, a Carolina wren. Chickadee in the yard. Then the sun comes up and it’s a party.
July 20, 2023
Nuthatch scolding a gray squirrel, who scratches himself with a hind leg. The rising sun takes its place among the goldfinches.
April 7, 2023
A small flock of white-breasted nuthatches appears at the woods’ edge, singing and zipping around, just as the sun is fading into gray clouds.
March 3, 2023
With a storm on the way, the sun is a bright smear in a field of white. Still the normal early-spring soundtrack: cardinal, nuthatch, junco, crow, plane, train…