7:12 a.m. (sunrise one minute earlier than yesterday). 1 degree, wind SE 1
mph. Sky: crystal clear, in the vanguard of sunrise southern and eastern
horizons trimmed in pastel peach—a hint of a hint offset by blue. Permanent
streams: upper, a gentle descent, whispers; lower, a steeper descent,
gurgles—both under a pall of ice. Flowing water pressing against panes of
ice, an army of squiggles and blotches on an endless run to the marsh—a
transformative experience for a cold morning (dogs, apparently bored, sit
in the snow, patiently waiting for their easily entertained master).
Wetlands: on the far side of the marsh, somewhere in the shadow of spruce
and pine, pileated drums, short, loud jackhammer blows that ride the cold
currents—a territorial announcement: widely spaced series, several per
minute. Everything else still, frozen in place. Pond: also hardened and mum
. . . even the feeder stream keeps its voice under wraps.

Garbled voices of ravens and crows. Piercing calls of jays. Nuthatches,
both species, chickadees, and titmice move between alders and feeders,
towing their voices behind them. A hairy woodpecker drums a resonant pine
limb, longer, faster volleys, delivered more frequently than pileated.

Female pileated still working the roadside maple, fresh chips litter the
ground—likely it's her mate, a mile away, that wallops the evergreens.
Pileateds don't migrate, maintain territories year-round, and like beavers
(or alligators in the Everglades), are *keystone* species that provide
sheltering and nesting cavities to other animals. American marten, both
species of flying squirrel, wood duck, saw-whet and screech owls, and
kestrel. Plenty of cavities to go around. Every spring, woodpecker couple
excavate a new nest cavity, every summer, a new roost site.  Although a
pileated may reuse an old nest as an evening roost, they rarely nest a
second in the same cavity.

Early signs of spring tilting in the depths of winter. More than a week
ago, I heard a chickadee sing. Today, a pileated and a hairy woodpecker
declare boundaries. And daylight stretches out, minute by minute in both
directions. I imagine in the jungles of the western Amazon, scarlet
tanagers must be molting, stirring, overeating. Responding to circannual
cycles triggered by mysteries in an equatorial landscape where
photoperiodism has a mere *cameo *role. This subtlety known to tanagers.
Imagined by naturalists. Looked forward to . . . by anyone with oaks in
their backyard.