7:12 a.m. (sunrise one minute earlier than yesterday). 1 degree, wind SE 1 mph. Sky: crystal clear, in the vanguard of sunrise southern and eastern horizons trimmed in pastel peach—a hint of a hint offset by blue. Permanent streams: upper, a gentle descent, whispers; lower, a steeper drop, gurgles—both under a pall of ice. Flowing water pressing against panes of ice, an army of squiggles and blotches on an endless run to the marsh—a transformative experience for a cold morning (dogs, apparently bored, sit in the snow, patiently waiting for their easily entertained master). Wetlands: on the far side of the marsh, somewhere in the shadow of spruce and pine, pileated drums, short, loud jackhammer blows that ride the cold currents—a territorial announcement: widely spaced series, several per minute. Everything else still, frozen in place. Pond: also hardened and mum . . . even the feeder stream keeps its voice under wraps.
Garbled voices of ravens and crows. Piercing calls of jays. Nuthatches, both species, chickadees, and titmice move between alders and feeders, towing their voices behind them. A hairy woodpecker drums a resonant pine limb, more extended, faster volleys, delivered more frequently than pileated.
Female pileated still working the roadside maple, fresh chips litter the ground—likely it's her mate, a mile away, that wallops the evergreens. Pileateds don't migrate, maintain territories year-round, and like beavers (or alligators in the Everglades), are keystone species that provide sheltering and nesting cavities to other animals. American marten, both species of flying squirrel, wood duck, saw-whet and screech owls, and kestrel. Plenty of holes to go around. Every spring, woodpecker couple excavate a new nest cavity, every summer, a new roost site. Although a pileated may reuse an old nest as an evening roost, they rarely nest a second in the same cavity.
Early signs of spring tilting in the depths of winter. More than a week ago, I heard a chickadee sing. Today, a pileated and a hairy woodpecker declare boundaries. And daylight stretches out, minute by minute in both directions. I imagine in the jungles of the western Amazon, scarlet tanagers must be molting, stirring, overeating. Responding to circannual cycles triggered by mysteries in a tropical landscape where photoperiodism has a mere cameo role. This subtlety, known to tanagers, imagined by naturalists and looked forward to . . . by anyone with oaks in their backyard.