Nature Diaries

The tin-can clink of blackbirds’ calls punctuate the quiet of dusk.

Plumes of crows boiled up into the sky this afternoon, sharp, black, paper-cut silhouettes, scattered over a blinding white sky. Everything looks drained of colour, bleached out, as if preempting snow.

Distant sounds; a dog barking, an intermittent chainsaw working lower in the valley, a front door closing in a yard, travel clearer in the winter air.