Juncos
8 J U N C O S I spoke with my friend earlier in the week, who said she had seen them in her yard, although I hadn’t seen them yet in mine: those cheery seed-eaters with small pink beaks, sporting smart suits of charcoal-gray feathers, whose appearance marks winter’s inaugural, no matter what the date on the calendar. This morning, when pouring coffee into the thermos in the galley kitchen, I hear one thump, then another, against the panes of the outer storm sash I had put up, then cleaned to an open clarity. Only after a second thud do I look out to see the gray trail of one of their low arcs returning to perch on one of the leafless branches of a hickory sapling, where two of my morning visitants look in at me— a pair of juncos announcing their spirited arrival by glancing off the panes of this cabin, before they fly up, ahead of the driving snow. ...
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