A few small birds are among the sideways-flying snowflakes. From the tops of the pines, two blue jays issue their usual denunciations.
white-throated sparrow
January 27, 2015
The barberry bush, still red with fruit, is heavy with a second crop of snow. From its depths, a white-throated sparrow’s plaintive song.
January 13, 2015
The snowpack glitters in the sun. The soft chirps of foraging sparrows. A single jet trailing a short contrail in an otherwise empty sky.
December 20, 2014
Christmas Bird Count! Crow, junco, white-throated sparrow. Three chickadees, two nuthatches and a cardinal. Nothing in the damn pear tree.
November 25, 2014
Dark clouds against light clouds. A distant helicopter. A white-throated sparrow’s plaintive song wandering up and down the scale.
November 17, 2014
Over the drumming of rain on the roof, a white-throated sparrow’s quavering song. The fog settles in, gray and inescapable as secret police.
October 10, 2014
Now that the walnuts have all fallen, a squirrel deigns to pick one off the ground. The dogwood beside the stream pullulates with sparrows.
February 8, 2014
Sunlight softened by high clouds. A great stillness, punctuated by the flutter of sparrow wings and a chickadee singing its spring song.
October 23, 2013
Cold rain. Three sparrows forage in the weeds next to a barberry bush, its green branches harboring masses of blood-red berries.
October 20, 2013
Sunny and cold. The soft whistles of white-throated sparrows are slowly subsumed by the hundred voices of an approaching bulldozer.
October 17, 2013
Weak sun. The meadow seems haunted by strange winds, seedy goldenrod heads bowing and swaying as flocks of sparrows move through.
October 10, 2013
A muffled explosion from the east: more dynamiting of the valley’s limestone. The sparrows in the lilac act like nothing happened.
April 14, 2013
Sunny but still cold at 9:00. A fly walks slowly up a porch column. Water gurgles in the ditch. Three kinds of sparrows trade songs.
November 24, 2012
Snowflakes swirl past the porch; the trees twist and sway. High, thin notes of a white-throated sparrow. A raven croaks twice.