Date: 1/25/26 7:39 am From: Ted Levin <tedlevin1966...> Subject: [VTBIRD] 25 January 2026: Hurricane Hill (1,100 feet), WRJ
6:51 a.m. (twenty-one minutes ahead of sunrise). -12 degrees, wind North 1
mile per hour, gusting to three (a cold wall of weather)—hours from a
crescent moon; seven days from full. Sky, untextured, the color of
sickness—gray-white-blue. The air, impregnable, iron-hard. Streams snug
under tight-fitting ice, gurgle and whisper. Although the snowy outline of
Mount Moosilaukee is visible in the northeast, nearly fifty miles away,
across the White River, color mutes—hemlock and pines darken, more black
than green, and maples, oaks, and beeches reduce to vertical and horizontal
grayish lines against the hard-packed snow. The world, still and quiet for
the moment, then ...
6:58 a.m. Hidden goldfinches call. A jumble of sound.
7:07 a.m. Juncos and chickadees, busy in the roadside bushes, call. One
chickadee scoffs at the forecast, sings, its breath visible and rising,
minute puffs. Knows spring that follows winter (no matter what happens this
afternoon).
7:10 a.m. Four ravens in conversation, overhead. Another seven. Then, two
more. Thirteen black birds under a lackluster sky, all business—no
exuberance (no rolling or dipping)—straight as an arrow flight. Trail their
dispeptic voices southeast. A breakfast appointment along the banks of the
Connecticut River. Big expectations: fish kill, perhaps? Deer carcass? A
banquet of frozen food for birds the color of outer space, a baker's dozen,
with four-foot wing spans and ice-pick bills. Linguists par
excellence—grocks, growls, burbles, toots, bell notes—high, low, hoarse—an
endless stream of babble fading away as ravens pass out of sight.
7:11 a.m. Lone crow above the White River, heads west, silent as a rabbit.
By the time I reach home (7:56 a.m.), titmice, white-breasted nuthatches,
and chickadees are on the feeders. Each bird takes a single seed, then
departs for an aerial pantry: creviced bark or forked twigs. The woodland's
inexhaustible storage units. Goldfinches and juncos, on the other hand,
dine alfresco on the deck. Sunflower hulls everywhere.
Fox tracks follow a stream across the meadow and into the woods.
Single file and dainty, then gone.
