6:58 a.m. (sunrise one minute before than yesterday, twenty-two minutes earlier than the winter solstice). 7 degrees, wind NW 1 mph. Sky: sunrise muzzled by a flat, dull gray-blue blanket, embezzled of color on a cold morning. Permanent streams: upper, openings widen, lengthen, multiply, a mellow gurgle, much louder than yesterday; lower, stream buried in winter, my feet sinking into a snowbank, I lean into a muffled percolation, the delicate sound of water under snow, cheerful and agreeable. The dogs sit down, eyes fixed on my face, wait for a clue. Wetlands: north end pileated, an adjunct to the empty marsh, cuts loose in the evergreens, drumming reverberates across the reeds—three rounds, then done, the mysterious workings of a woodpecker. Alders traced in frost crystals. Pond: blades on ice, the tracks of little skaters. Twenty-two years ago, leaning on milk cartons, Jordan learned to skate here, gamboling on twin-blades, a protégé of the northwind.
Absent for a week, female pileated abandoned the maple (no woodchips on snow), reward not worth effort. White-breasted nuthatches vigorously calling. Not a peep from a red-breasted. Chickadees can't be induced to whistle. Six jays gather driveway grit. An absence of doves and titmice. Two turkeys scratch sunflower seeds under the feeder, gift of a careless hairy woodpecker.
Over the southwest corner of the marsh, a hot-air balloon on a frigid journey suspended like a thought bubble above Robinson Hill. Bald eagle, wings like planks, primaries fingering the breeze. Heads southeast toward the big river—slow, rhythmic strokes . . . a deliberate flight. Oversized bill sunshine yellow. Head and tail immaculately white, body and wings dark brown. A cream and coffee-colored bird.
Caffeinated by the passing eagle, my heart races on an otherwise glum morning—my lookout pivots. Like snowflakes and fingerprints, no two sunrises ever feel quite the same.