On a calm day in autumn, you can hear the sound of leaves littering the forest floor. On certain summer days, there’s the soft rain of caterpillars pooping. Today a walk outside is accompanied by the plop of clumps of snow, at least those that don’t hit branches on the way down and dissipate in a spray of white.

The morning when most of that snow was deposited on the trees, a titmouse was bravely singing “peter peter peter” among the steady flakes. Birds don’t need to check their shadows to know that spring is coming. They have an internal calendar which is calibrated by the shortening night lengths. Late February sees an increase in bird song, that special vocalizing which birds use to secure territories and attract mates.


[Black-capped chickadee]

The chickadee song of “fee-bee-bee” and “fee-bee” joins the myriad of other vocalizations made by this chatty species. It can be sung year-round by both sexes, but the main use is by males in the breeding season.


[Red-bellied woodpecker]

Woodpeckers drum instead of singing.


[Red-tailed hawk]

Red-tailed hawks use aerial displays for courtship and territorial tasks.

On leashes

One night this week, Bear needed to go out at midnight. The wind roared and angry gusts crashed through the trees as a warm front pushed our way. We were exhausted both from the baby and from being miserably sick for a few days. We decided that the chickens which Bear loved so much were most likely safe in their coops, so I opened the door and motioned Bear out. It was the first time in over a year that we had given him the opportunity to run free.

He pranced out into the snow, head and tail held high. He pranced a little way in one direction, then the other. As I headed back upstairs we started to have misgivings about giving him the opportunity to go on walkabout. He could easily disappear for hours and we’d start to worry about the chickens being let out in the morning. But out the window we could see Bear still standing in the porch light.

I went back and opened the door, shaking a box of treats. Bear happily trotted inside. I leashed him and we all headed out into the maelstrom.

One night we emerged from the house next door to find the world laden with snow. Burdened saplings loomed toward us in the beam of our flashlight.

When snow plasters all the branches, it creates a fairy-tale landscape. Though this tale has moved to Russia from the knobby “German” forest of late fall. The woods bristle with texture and close in around the walker. Without snow, the bare gray trees give the impression of an arid land, which is somewhat appropriate because so much water is bound up in snow and ice.

The cloud-like surface of the snow is illusory, accessible only with snowshoes. In boots the deception crumbles step by step, and mounds may be revealed as deep drifts. The plastered branches provide no dry perch for singing finches or chickadees. Fortunately they regulate their legs and feet just above freezing. My body has some designs in that direction – I’m often accused of having cold hands and feet – but it’s not enough to let me go barefoot in the snow.

We’ve had some beautiful clear days to charge up our solar-powered system. One day at lunch I stepped out into the sunshine that was bright and warm on the glittering snow. In the distance, a titmouse sang “peter, peter, peter,” a prelude to the coming breeding season. Fearless chickadees foraged nearby, keeping up a constant chatter. Squirrels cried and one pair on the ground erupted into a brief chase.



The snow cover had a crunchy crust like good bread. Tree shadows lined the forest flour, following the contours of snow that rolled like the plains. An understory hemlock towered overhead and broke up the lines with prickly blobs. Further along, the beech understory still shivered in their retained leaves.

The marshy boardwalk, so open in the summer, now felt like a refuge from the ascendant power of the winter sun. Pines, hemlocks, and spruces surrounded me where the saturated soil retards the growth of deciduous trees that rule the forest elsewhere. The bird life was the same, however, and chickadees fluttered away at their work. A nuthatch in the distance was stuck on repeat as he sang his breeding season song.

Then lunch was over, and I re-entered the office, my vision hazy in the darkness.