10 degrees and overcast at the start
Bird Highlight: Redhead
Species list: red-necked grebe, mute swan, mallard, American black duck, gadwall, American wigeon, redhead, bufflehead, common merganser, red-breasted merganser, ring-billed gull, rock pigeon, downy woodpecker, white-breasted nuthatch, black-capped chickadee, golden-crowned kinglet, European starling, house sparrow, northern cardinal, American goldfinch. (20 species)
Miles Hearn
WINTER POETRY
Hush:
Breathe stillness:
inhale the fresh purity of this white world,
the crisp air of the northern noon.
Here in the woods,
here in the utter quietness
the pristine silence of the calm forest
(spruce trees pointing upwards searchingly to a serene heaven)
our snowshoe tracks
cross the trigrams
of the rabbit trail
where the tiny footprints of the frisky field mice
make arabesques on the crystalline crust.
Here is a peace so deep
so encompassing
that a chickadee’s sudden note
startles the squirrel
perched pensively on a pine bough.
He jumps – –
but into the engulfing stillness
into the silence of this white and muted world.
Rest here. Feel the quietude.
- Doris Huestis Mills Speirs