Cloudy, windy, and bitter cold, but a house finch caroling by the springhouse sounds genuinely joyful — a soundtrack for the scattered snowflakes flying this way and that.
wind
A bitter cold wind at dawn. A raven croaking as high as a crow flies over, setting off a chickadee. Then nothing again but the sound of wind.
Almost all this morning’s voices belong to the wind, except for the nasal chirps of a white-breasted nuthatch somewhere. Snow flies back and forth, never seeming to land.
Heavy gray skies and a bitter wind drop snowflakes in my lap—little six-spoked wheels. A red squirrel at the edge of the porch looks annoyed to find me in its seat.
Wind and clouds and the clattering of treetops rocking out of sync. Two squirrels hunting the last unfallen acorns keep climbing into the top branches of a big red oak, hanging by their hind legs to peel their prizes.
Cold and mostly clear. An occasional sound of trains or traffic rises above the shush of wind. A single red cloud scuds overhead and disappears off east.
Cold and gray, with the wind hissing through the last few oak leaves still on the trees. The male Carolina wren sleeps in past his mate, her ‘response’ preceding his call by nearly five minutes.
A bitter wind has brought the first, thin snowfall. I open my folding seat cushion and find a yellow leaf nestled like a letter in an envelope.
Clear and cold, with wind supplying all the voices in the dawn chorus. A crow rockets past, wings at an oblique angle to its direction of travel, cheering itself on.
Red sky behind red leaves at sunrise. In the yard, big winds have stripped the tulip tree of all but its smallest leaves—the sheerest of dresses.
Cold wind seasoned with rain—almost maritime weather. I sit in my old barn coat like a barnacle, listening for the approach of dawn.
Gray skies with a bitter wind. Colored leaves fly past. A pair of gray squirrels meet on the trunk of a black locust and touch snouts.
Wind breaking up the yellow-bellied clouds. Tulip tree samaras spin like the blades of invisible helicopters—a whole squadron headed out into the meadow.
Wind and rain at dawn. Half an hour before sunrise, a great twittering erupts from the meadow as hundreds of white-throated sparrows, sheltering deep in the goldenrod, begin to awaken.