Cold and overcast with a lighter gray patch where the sun might be. The nasal calls of a nuthatch. A distant mob of crows.
white-breasted nuthatch
November 25, 2016
The birds seem strangely cheerful on this dull, overcast day. A nuthatch even goes up a tree trunk rather than the usual head-first descent.
August 28, 2016
A warm morning, and all I hear are the birds of winter: chickadee, nuthatch, pileated woodpecker. A dead cranefly dangles from a spiderweb.
July 6, 2016
Humid and cool. A nuthatch spirals up rather than down a walnut tree trunk, turning upside-down only when it finds something to eat.
June 23, 2016
A blue jay skulks through the trees at the woods’ edge but still a nuthatch spots him, and within seconds a mob of small birds assembles.
April 26, 2016
Warm and windy. Nuthatch and woodpecker calls intermingle with the creaks and rattles of trees, most of which have now burst their buds.
November 14, 2015
Between bitter gusts of wind, I hear the calls of juncos and nuthatches, chickadees and titmice, a song sparrow singing in the ditch.
September 15, 2015
Sunrise stains the treetops. The woods are full of anxious-sounding calls: chipmunks, jays, nuthatches, an endlessly scolding squirrel…
December 20, 2014
Christmas Bird Count! Crow, junco, white-throated sparrow. Three chickadees, two nuthatches and a cardinal. Nothing in the damn pear tree.
December 18, 2014
Colder, with a flat white sky and the ground lightly seasoned with snow. A lone nuthatch zigzags and spirals up the trunk of a tall locust.
December 15, 2014
A nuthatch and chickadee gadding about together, poking into everything. Nuthatch flies past my nose; chickadee balks and circles the house.
December 10, 2014
Overcast and windy. Two nuthatches descend tree trunks on either side of the road, calling back and forth as they glean in the furrows.
August 17, 2014
Five nuthatches land in the walnut tree and begin scuttling up and down its trunk in the pouring rain, poking and probing the furrowed bark.
April 1, 2014
Two nuthatches meet on a branch for a split-second copulation, then fly off to separate tree trunks to resume foraging, tails to the sky.