Date: 12/8/24 6:25 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 08 December 2024: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
6:57 a.m. (thirteen minutes before sunrise). 23 degrees, wind South 7 miles
per hour, gusting to 21. Flurries on top of two inches of fresh, sticky
snow. Every branch, every trunk inscribed white—soft, cold, a volatile
elegance. Sky: ripples of blue-gray with portals of light; faint blush
across the northwest; hints of pink amid building turbulence of clouds, on
the move and sinking. Hilltops planed. Visibility restricted. New Hampshire
disappears in a welter of moisture—no Smarts Mountain, no Mount Cube. Even
the ridgeline north of the White River dissolves in snow and mist and
clouds too heavy to stay aloft.
Out of the flurries, west-bound raven calls. Another, directly overhead,
flies north—the swishing of wings. A third raven barks above the
hemlocks—black birds beneath the gray, mobile sky. Three crows,
well-behaved and well behind the ravens, silent as the snow, head
north, driven by the wind. Three jays in roadside maple hop along branches,
displacing snow. A red-tailed hawk, across the meadow and hidden from
sight, screams—a call I haven't heard in two weeks. I search in vain. Nada.
Eventually, in the direction of the redtail, a blue jay exits the fortress
of hemlocks and joins his buddies in the roadside maple. Rich Little of
songbirds fools me (again).
Personable chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches investigate aspens and
lilacs. Neither calls excessively. Picking and probing. Insect or spider
eggs? Maybe. Stored sunflower seeds? Maybe. A chorus of red-breasted
nuthatches in hemlocks. One flies into view, the brightest bird on a
dismally gray morning.
Behind my house, a barred owl glides out of the maples and across the
meadow. A no-flap glide, wings slightly bent. A big bird, blunt on both
ends. Into the wall of hemlocks, green and white.
