March 6, 2026

Two mornings ago I thought was going to be last morning I’d wake up with trees covered in snow until late fall, at least. This morning fresh, wet snow has covered the bare patches on the hillsides, and juncos are bellying up to the feeder once again. Tomorrow begins a stretch of 50+ degree days, so maybe this is really it unless it snows in April, which is never out of the question.

Deer have been active, tripping the trail camera between 10pm and 2am almost every night this week, and once at 5pm, in the evening light before we spring forward an hour this weekend. A pair of does, assuming its the same pair, their tracks leading up the rudimentary footpath to our yard from the ROW, possibly to eat from the dark halo of fallen birdseed at the base of the feeder pole.

I read and reviewed Polly Atkin’s The Company of Owls this week, and was moved to learn that in her rural county of extreme northwest England (it used to be called Cumbria for a time but I forget the official designation), they celebrate a squirrel appreciation day, and wildlife watchers take the time to observe and enjoy them. Out of the corner of my eye right now I can see large gray squirrels trundling over the snow, leaping, scaling trees and knocking snow from the branches. Sometimes I think about how I don’t appreciate them enough, how their ubiquity seems to erase their unusualness, their quirkiness, and amplifies their (to be very judgmental) peskiness. It seems like a big winter for them, though. I don’t remember when the last mast year was — was it 2024? Has there been a corresponding squirrel boom? Are we do for another horrible summer like we had a few years ago, when dead squirrels seemed to mark every mile on the highway?

Not to continue in such a gloomy direction but I’m preoccupied lately with the blonding of ash trees as I drive around. Every time I see an ash tree seemingly unaffected by emerald ash borers, I hope against hope it can hold on, that we can have some left once they’ve fully wrought their destruction.

I missed waking up early for the blood moon this past week, but the moon was still reddish on Wednesday night: