6:59 a.m. (sunrise one minute earlier than yesterday). 21 degrees, wind S 4 mph. Sky: in the east, a luminous crescent, a medallion pinned to pale blue, fading by the moment; in the south and west, a lavender wash supports several lines of clouds, faint purple-gray. Eventually, blanched by sunlight and condensed into the white fluff of morning. A mid-winter subsidy, an outpouring of sunshine (for the moment). Permanent Streams: upper, three small openings in the ice and snow. As water rushes to the marsh, the slightest sound escapes, barely audible. I pause, hands cupped to ears as though listening to Blackburnian warbler. Lower, bears the brunt of winter, a clandestine, aphonic flow. Wetlands: a landscape fit for Clyde Butcher or Ansel Adams. Foreground, midground, background thrown into stark relief, framed by boundless blue, a three-dimensional panorama, every branch and reed distinct. Shoulders flat-screens devices into the dust-bin of distraction. Pond: deer tracks loop the surface.
On a dead cherry limb, a hairy woodpecker lays down the morning's meter and groove. Tentatively, from a nearby alder, chickadee whistles, another dress rehearsal.
High and headed east, a raven, fluid, measured strokes, crew in the sky. A level flight. Reminds me that my Concept Two rowing machine idles in the corner of the living room. Crow appears. Smooth flight, level, but wings beat more often than the raven. Titmouse undulates across the road. Wings flick in and out, rising on the flap, sinking on the glide, an invisible roller-coaster. Technique shared by chickadee, exaggerated by woodpecker, discarded by owl, which strays over the road like an over-sized, out-of-season moth.
Seven doves grit-picking on the driveway, startled, an abrupt exodus, a whirring flight. Wing song understood by jays, which notice. One flushes. Flight line of doves arrow straight . . . and fast. Pitch into aspens—perch with the snow. The sun crests the eastern rim of the Hollow, fresh and bright. The heat of the moment, my face warmed—the conspiracy of winter sunshine.