Happy Valentine’s Day 2025
Category Archives: Nature
The Latest in Snow
Tuesday’s snow arrived, just as predicted. The small flakes gradually grew larger, and they fell steadily, hour after hour. The present, middle-aged me would likely have said Enough! Unlike the past two years, we’ve had our share of the white stuff this winter. It seemed that the deep snow of January 6 might just be with us forever, thanks to regularly frigid temperatures. We bid goodbye to its last persistent dregs only about a week ago, and it was strange to see actual lawn again. But, as I wrote in my last post, I had recently been in conversation with my much younger, severely snow-deprived self. She advised me to relax and enjoy. It was another lovely snowfall, after all.
The present me is grateful for today’s warming trend, accompanied by rain. Goodbye snow! No need to hurry back. Why not wait a year or so before visiting again?
Winter Icing
Last week’s winter storm brought ice to our part of Northern Virginia. We awoke to a translucent landscape. It took me back to a time in my Atlanta childhood when I had little first-hand experience with snow, at least any that I could remember. My parents would wax nostalgic about family fun in the snow when I was a baby in Lexington, Kentucky. They seemed surprised that I carried no tender memories of making a snowman with Daddy when I was a year old. I grew up feeling sorely snow-deprived. Every once in a while, snow might be predicted, but typically, what we got instead, in Atlanta, was ice.
The current Virginia weather prompted me to rummage through a shoe box of 1970s photos at my mother’s house. I was searching for a particular picture of me and two friends. It had been taken in our back yard on a day when school had been canceled due to a winter weather event, whether snow or ice, I couldn’t recall. But I remembered that the three of us had that characteristically awkward, disheveled, waif-like look of most ten to twelve year olds from that era.
I found the photo quickly. It was a rare snow picture. On the back I’d printed: First snow, Atlanta, 1971. While it obviously wasn’t the city’s first-ever snow, it apparently was mine, in that location. We’d moved to the neighborhood only three years before. My old green and red swing set is visible at back left, long before it became an arbor for wisteria vines. I’d forgotten that that our yard had been such a wide open expanse in those early years. By the time we sold the house, in 2017, trees, shrubs and foliage had grown up dramatically, creating the look of a sheltered, enclosed garden. The corner of the garage, at back right, hadn’t been visible like that for many years, nor had the homes on the street behind.
The details of that winter day in 1971 are hazy. Seems like we wandered around and gaped, in awe, at the alien snow-covered landscape. We weren’t well-equipped for actual snow play. Cold, wet feet and hands prevented us from staying out very long. My husband is amused at how ill-dressed we were for the circumstances, in corduroys or jeans, and sneakers. This was Atlanta, not Rochester, I remind him. Few, if any of my friends had snow boots or ski wear; we would have outgrown them before they were ever needed. Winter in Atlanta was less a season than an exotic, fleetingly ephemeral sensation.
My memories of Atlanta ice storms are more distinctly fixed in my memory than the snow days. Growing up, I considered any form of frozen precipitation a welcome break from the usual. Ice, snow’s cousin, was our more frequent visitor, and I found its effects fascinating. As I roamed the icy yard last week, I saw it again with the eyes of a much younger me.
I loved how frozen droplets, their motion captured mid-air, dangled from dogwood branches. I saw, with wonder, that every individual privet leaf had been perfectly encased in ice. Each leaf was twinned with its own ice copy that could be carefully removed. Amazing!
I enjoyed hearing and feeling the ice-clad blades of grass crunch beneath my feet as I walked.
I liked how the light filtering through ice-covered branches gave the sky a lavender tinge.
Suddenly, I was brought back to the present by a sharp sound resembling a gunshot. The birds at the feeder vanished in a whoosh, and pine boughs came crashing down. The temperature was rising, and the sleet had turned to rain, but the pines all around our house were bending lower and lower with the extra water weight. The power went out. There were more gunshot-like sounds. I could see cars slowing down out front, avoiding a couple of newly downed limbs.
We were fortunate in having only minimal damage to trees from last week’s ice. This week’s winter storm is just now beginning. Small snowflakes are starting to fall. Accumulation of three to six inches is predicted for the metro DC area. The ten-year old me from 1971 would be ecstatic (and far better prepared, in terms of apparel.)
Wherever you are, may winter wow you with its beauty, rather than its destructive power.
Witness to a Predation
In recent days, I’ve made a decision to focus consciously on the good. On the beautiful. That verse from Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4:8) has been echoing in my head: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
I won’t hide my head in the sand and deny reality, and I’ll try to find ways to be helpful. But I’ll make an effort to look for sunshine amidst the shadows. So my outlook was fairly positive yesterday as I was sitting at my computer, ordering stamps for our New Year’s cards. I added more of the Winter Woodland Animals to my cart. I love these stamps, which feature a stylized fox, buck, rabbit and owl in snowy settings.
Then, bang! There was a sudden thud at the window beside me. A few wispy white feathers floated in the air. On the ground was a dark-eyed junco, one of the many that fly down from Canada to winter here in Virginia. The small, gray and white bird lay on its back, motionless. It looked utterly helpless, its little legs in the air. I watched in dismay as it remained there, still. As I stood at the window, my instinct was to pray over the bird, in words something like this: Dear God, your eye is on the sparrow, so your eye must also be on its cousin, the junco. You made this little miracle creature, so why not heal it? It’s a miracle of flight. It’s a miracle that such a tiny being can thrive in this desperately cold weather. It’s a miracle of elegance and beauty.
I waited. Dear God, let me be a conduit of your love, of your healing power.
The bird remained motionless.
Should I go out? Give it the gentlest of nudges? I decided not to interfere.
And just then, the bird stirred. It popped up, fluffed its feathers. It appeared to be gathering its energy, preparing to fly. It looked fine. It looked like it was going to be OK.
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, God!
And just then, there was quick flash of dark feathers, and the little bird was gone. In horror, I realized I hadn’t been the only one watching the injured junco. A hawk, hidden from view, had evidently been eyeing its potential prey. It swooped down and disappeared with its catch. It flew away with the mini-miracle that had just seemed to regain its strength.
I opened the window and clapped and screamed. It was too late, of course. But my anger and anguish needed an outlet. I yelled myself hoarse. So much for the sunny side of life.
I’ve observed nature long enough to have seen first-hand evidence of its sharp teeth and claws, of the thorns among the roses. I know that the cute bunny on the Winter Woodland stamps may end up as dinner for the equally charming fox or owl. I regularly see handsome red-shouldered hawks about, silently surveying their surroundings. They gaze at me coolly, poised and superior. I get it that my bird-feeding area can occasionally be a death zone. I see telltale clumps of feathers on the ground. For several years now, I’ve noticed a solitary dove as it appears before and remains after its fellow partnered couples. Call me silly and sentimental, but I’ve prayed for that lonely dove, too.
I considered that the small songbird had been injured more severely than was apparent. Maybe it would have managed to make its way to a hidden spot, only to suffer a long, drawn-out death. Perhaps the hawk merely hastened the end while nourishing itself?
I understand that all creatures, including hawks, need to eat. I’m not a vegetarian. I eat chicken, so technically, like a hawk, I prey on birds. But let the hawks eat elsewhere. Anywhere but in my side yard sanctuary.
I keep replaying the events in my head. The abrupt juxtaposition of hope and despair makes the repeating vision particularly painful. I thought the little bird was a goner, then I thought it had a chance, that it had survived a near miss. That my prayers had been heard, and answered. Then I watched as it fell victim to a terrible fate and certain death.
I can’t help but see the series of incidents as emblematic of life in our times. Seems we’re entering an era, in our nation and in the world, where predators and tyrants are celebrated and granted free reign, while the most vulnerable are targeted, maligned, and persecuted.
In my last post, I mused about what loveliness I might be missing just beyond my windows. Now I wonder what terrible sights I’ve been fortunate to miss. Will I look out onto a happy haven or a killing field? Even on the sunny side, the shadows encroach.
Witness to an Occultation. . .and to What Else?
Our daughter called on Monday evening to inform us of a quickly approaching astronomical event: the lunar occultation of Mars. As an aerospace engineer who minored in astronomy, she’s up on all that sort of stuff. I think she was somewhat surprised when I knew exactly what she was talking about. In preparation for my recent post on shadows cast by the nearly full February Wolf moon, I’d read that the moon would occult, or hide, Mars briefly on the night of January 13. To us Earthlings, Mars appears particularly big and bright now. It’s nearing the point in its orbit at which it’s closest to Earth. The side we’re seeing is fully lit by the sun, so the planet appears especially red. Those of us in the continental United States and parts of Africa had the chance Monday, under clear skies, to watch Mars, looking like a glowing red dot, move closer and closer to the moon until it disappeared behind it. After a while, it appeared again on the other side.
Thanks to our daughter’s reminder, around 8:45 I began stepping outside at regular intervals to observe the celestial show. Fortunately, it was another beautifully clear night. Through my bird-watching binoculars, I could distinctly see the tiny red jewel of Mars as it sidled up to the bright white globe of the moon. After a bit, it disappeared behind the moon. About a half hour afterwards, Mars emerged on the opposite side of the moon.
I would have missed the evening’s distant, silent spectacle, had my daughter not called. It made me consider, with wonder, what unseen curiosities and marvels, large and small, may be regularly unfolding around me. Often, they’re essentially invisible, as I’m lost in my head, preoccupied. Sometimes it’s with a cumbersome, amorphous anxiety. Or with small worries that tend to loom ever larger the more I dwell on them.
Every once in a while, I happen to glance outside at exactly the right moment to see a bird that’s not among the crowd of regulars around our feeders: a brown creeper hopping with zesty deliberateness up the pine, a golden-crowned kinglet flitting lightly among the leaves of the Japanese maple, a hermit thrush absolutely motionless on the bird bath. And the next moment, the bird is gone. What others come and go, without my ever knowing?
What mysteries are taking place in the skies above, and in the ground below? When this human-made world is too much with me, when people disappoint (just as I have been known to let down those who care about me), when institutions founder, when things prove faulty, when I’m close to feeling overwhelmed, I can remember to do this: Look out. Look up. Or down. Direct my attention to the everyday glories transpiring all around me. Change my perspective.
Right now, outside my window, the shadows are blue on the white snow. Two Carolina wrens are hanging upside down from the suet feeder, pecking mightily. A squirrel, the one with the fluffy ear tufts, perches atop a chair, looking thoughtful, its little hands clasped together. When evening comes, I can watch the now waning moon as it rises above the trees. I can remember to look for Mars, and for the bright stars of Orion. I likely won’t see another lunar occultation for a while. But I may witness something that will inspire awe and take me out of myself for a precious while.
Wolf Moon Shadows on the Snow
I’ve written before about quite possibly my favorite view anywhere–from our front windows on a snowy, moonlit night. The shadows of our old silver maples appear to be etched sharply, as in black ink, on the sparkling, snow-covered lawn. We’ve been treated to that scene for the past two nights. The January Wolf moon is almost full. Its radiance is breathtaking. Photographs can’t quite capture the beauty, but they come closer than words.
May winter luminescence brighten your spirits!
Previous posts on this view: Maple Tree Shadows on the Moonlit Lawn, January 9, 2020, and My Favorite View, February 25, 2014.
Thankful, on this Thanksgiving Day (2024)
On this Thanksgiving day, a chilly drizzle dims, but cannot mask, the beauty of fall’s spectacular finale here in Northern Virginia.
Late-blooming roses and a few determined petunias share space with brilliant red maple leaves, soon to fly away. As I give thanks for nature’s many gifts, the words of this familiar old hymn, a comforting presence, abide with me today.
For the beauty of the earth,
for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth, over and around us lies.
Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
For the beauty of each hour, of the day and of the night,
hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind’s delight,
for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.
Wishing you and your loved ones a Thanksgiving filled with many blessings!
–For the Beauty of the Earth
Words: Folliot S. Pierpoint, 1864
Music: Conrad Kocher, 1838
Halloween ’24 and its Prequels
Slim revels in the various lead-up events to the big day. His enthusiastic presence heightens the fun at our church’s annual Trunk or Treat. It’s a pleasure having him by my side, revving up the crowd from his usual perch at the back of my car.
It was Slim’s idea that the refurbished nativity animals accompany us to the event. By this time, he and the pups had gotten chummy with the foursome of ox, donkey, lamb and ram. He decided that their debut at Trunk or Treat should function as a preview in preparation for Advent. But they needed some Halloween flair, he insisted. He dug through boxes of fall decorations to find suitable ribbon for bows, which he carefully tied around each faux-furry neck.
We were all happy to see our daughter and her fiancé, who dropped by last weekend between Halloween parties. Slim heartily approved of their regal vampire costumes.
Slim loves a festive centerpiece, and he has an eye for detail. In our dining room, he toyed with the painted gourds, arranging them just so in the punch bowl.
The week before Halloween was warm and sunny here in Northern Virginia. Between decorating projects, Slim could often be found soaking up the October rays and basking in the balmy breezes. While sad to see that the impatiens had succumbed to a recent frost, he appreciated the persistence of our petunias.
He was surprised to discover some out-of-season blooms on our lilacs.
A birder from way back, Slim had for years been encouraging me to join the Feeder Watch program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Now that I have, I understand. I’ve always appreciated the peace that comes from being immersed in nature, especially at times when the human world is a muddle of confounding conflict. And I’ve found that when I’m counting birds for Feeder Watch, I pay closer attention to each little creature that appears. I’m looking with greater concentration and intentionality, and the experience is more satisfying. Slim spent hours sitting motionless in a chair close to the feeders, gazing at the variety of birds that swooped around him, not troubled at all by his presence. I found some precious moments to settle myself in a chair just beyond, and savor the pleasant ambiance.
Before long, it was time for the annual pre-Halloween joyride. The dogs piled in, and Slim took the wheel. On an afternoon that epitomized convertible weather, they merrily cruised the neighborhood, looking for old friends and admiring the numerous ambitious Halloween displays.
Slim has claimed that he and his wide circle of influencers are largely responsible for the exponential growth of Halloween, from a quick one- day celebration, to a weekend, to its own extensive season. He’s been known to get a bit cocky, so I take his words with a grain of salt. Is it really a good thing, I wondered, for gargantuan blow-up spiders, demons and Disney villains to join us as early as August? I asked him why he and his colleagues, if they wielded such power, couldn’t turn their attention toward easing some of society’s ills. They were trying to do just that, he replied. The thinking was this: If we can unite for weeks over a love of candy, playing dress-up and poking fun at our fears, maybe we can realize that our points of commonality outnumber our differences.
Maybe there’s something to this. Even one day of Halloween is an amazing occasion. People across our country open their doors to hand out generous amounts of candy to children. Most of these are kids we hardly know, or have never met. We greet and give to strangers, simply because they show up, wear a costume, and say “Trick or Treat.” It seems that over the years on October 31, we’ve moved toward a greater emphasis on the treating than the tricking. That’s something to keep in mind and strive for, every day, whether it’s Halloween season, or not.
Still With Us, Still Masking, the Raccoons
For many years, we rarely glimpsed a raccoon in our immediate area. I wrote about young Kiko’s only encounter with a raccoon inside his fenced domain back in 2013. During our Covid home confinement in 2020, we began to notice them more often, and they provided much-needed entertainment. They were the ideal visitors for that era: always masked, always outside. Our family would gather eagerly at the windows to watch these unexpectedly agile athletes perform acrobatic feats. They persisted, and persisted, and managed, somehow, to feast on seed from the hanging feeders. These days, raccoons are ever-present.
This winter, a pair of small, absolutely adorable raccoons began appearing regularly as dusk approached. We’d see them working patiently, using their delicate, long-fingered hands to comb the ground for sunflower seeds beneath the feeders. I’d learned that it’s an easy task for a raccoon to remove a feeder from its hook, so I’d started securing them to the branches with carabiners. For a while they seemed to work. But raccoons clearly persevere. I’d awaken to find both feeders on the ground, their components scattered across a wide area, the seed long gone. Now I remove the feeders at night, after the last of the late-feeding cardinals has retired. A slight delay, though, and I’ll find a feeder already on the ground. These little guys work quickly now that they’ve mastered the carabiner.
Once they realized that the feeders disappear after dark, the raccoons are more likely to show up during the day. Early morning, mid-day, late afternoon, whenever. Hearing a louder than expected rustling in the weeds one recent day, I watched as a raccoon vigorously dragged a feeder toward a more private dining spot, behind the garage. And I know, from the gifts they leave, that they check for the feeders every night. I still think the raccoons are very cute. But I wouldn’t object strenuously to fewer visits from these furry friends.
Back Home (With the Local Foxes)
My childhood neighborhood in urban Atlanta was full of large, mature trees and pockets of densely wooded areas. I grew up amidst plenty of small wildlife. Squirrels, chipmunks and birds were, and are, plentiful. For some reason, we often saw an opossum sitting placidly on the roof of our next-door neighbor’s home, easily visible from our kitchen window. Friends tell me that foxes, coyotes and deer all make the occasional appearance these days, but I never spotted any in all my years there. So I wasn’t prepared to be surrounded by the larger wild creatures we see every day here in Northern Virginia.
We had been in our present home just a few months when my husband and I awakened to a horrific screeching sound. My first thought was that our daughter, then about eighteen months old, was crying out, in a most terrible way.
“She’s OK! She’s OK! It’s not her!,” my husband assured me. “It’s coming from outside.” It was spring, and the windows were open.
The screeching continued. It still sounded like a child suffering a brutal attack.
It wasn’t until the next day that we determined the source of the noise: a fox. Just a little red fox.
Over the last twenty years we’ve come to be aware of the many foxes around us. Now that we know where to look, we see them as they go about their typically quiet everyday lives. We consider it a privilege to share our space with them. Their middle-of-the-night screeches no longer frighten us. Sometimes I’ve looked out and watched with interest as a fox stands in the center of our yard and yells out, repeatedly. During daylight hours, our local foxes regularly follow certain routes, from one patch of wooded county land to another, crossing yards, or following paved paths like driveways and walkways. Occasionally we’ll spot them curled up and snoozing in a patch of sun.
When our dog Kiko was alive, his favorite look-out spot was by the fence in our side yard, where he could watch the foxes on their rounds. They frequently passed within a few yards of the boundary. But neither Kiko nor the foxes made a sound. They eyed one another with intense scrutiny, as if wondering if they might be related. The Shiba Inu is sometimes called the “little fox dog,” and the two are similar in size and appearance, with their thick red fur and pointed ears. The fox’s long bushy tail, though, contrasts with Kiko’s shorter, curly one. In a post from last winter, I remarked that a glimpse of a fox in the front yard sometimes prompts a moment of panic when I think it’s Kiko, still with us, but alarmingly beyond the safety of the fence. The foxes have become a sort of stand-in for our beloved dog, and I find their presence comforting. In their mannerisms, they also remind me of Kiko. They look at humans with a calm, steady gaze in their golden-amber eyes, then glance away coolly, as if to say, “I’m fine without you.” Their black-tipped ears twitch at the slightest sound. And like my dog in his agile prime, they can jump up, turn on a dime, and dash away speedily.
After our return from Cape Cod, I was glad that the fox I’ve come to see most often hadn’t moved on to new territory. I call him Freddie, and he’s evidently the senior male, the group patriarch, father to three cubs. Early on sunny mornings, he’s often curled up in front of his favorite tree in my mother’s yard. In the winter, he was frequently accompanied by his mate, a nursing female. I dubbed her Frankie, short for Francesca. She was dainty and skittish, slightly smaller than Freddie, and lighter in color, with a narrower face. I haven’t seen her for a couple of months. But their youngsters are everywhere: long, lanky adolescents, lean and big-eared. The sibling in charge is a spirited, fearless female. I dubbed her Snowball for the prominent bob of white at the end of her tail. She’s a skilled and patient hunter, often lying flat in the mulch, blending in, motionless, waiting to pounce. And sometimes she and the other young ones venture inside our fenced area. They’re small enough to pop easily in and out through the wrought-iron bars. Now that Kiko’s nearly fifteen-year tenure as guard is over, the area has become even more of a safe sanctuary for birds, squirrels and chipmunks. But with his absence, his foxy look-a-likes have become bolder. When I’m at my desk and spot Snowball inside the fence, I raise the window, and she flees immediately. Foxes are intelligent, and they seem to learn quickly the limits of human hospitality. But they’re also persistent and sneaky.
Just the other day I happened to witness Snowball flying across the front yard with a bushy-tailed squirrel in her jaws. It’s a wild kingdom out there. I’d prefer that all our neighborhood critters were vegetarians, but it’s not up to me.
I wonder about little Frankie. I’d like to think she’s moved on, by choice. It’ unlikely, I know, but I hope she’s living her best life in another welcoming enclave, relishing the absence of familial responsibilities. After all, she knows her teenagers can take care of themselves.