January-soundways 1864 |  Afternoon to evening | Edge Habitat

There’s a certain Slant of light / Winter Afternoons –, c. early 1862 (Fr320A)

According to the Snell meteorological record, the opening days of January were windy, with bursts of cold recorded early in the month (Jan. 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9) and again at its close ( Jan 30 and 31). Snow fell or drifted on Jan. 4, 5, and 6; rain, mist, and hail visited on Jan. 15, 18, 19; and a few days were wholly covered by clouds: Jan. 8, 17, 20, and 29. Cold days alternated with warmer days of thawing on Jan 24, 25, and 29; and “fine days” unfurled in small stretches: Jan. 3; Jan. 10-14, Jan. 26-28. The thermometer dipped to -1.5º F on Jan. 7, the coldest recorded temperature for the month, then rose to 44.2º F on Jan. 29, the month’s highest recorded temperature. Rain and snow melt was noted at just over 2 inches; and 5 inches of new snow fell. Stratus clouds were the most frequent sky-covering, and winds came most often from the NW + W.

Bird species in the scatterplot for January number around 40.

At the break of January, the December snows have stopped but the wind continues.

In the cold, the listener is moving around, walking evenly over the snow. Their footfalls pass out of the village.

:13

Bird-sounds—now just brief calls and briefer song-fragments—draw the listener to a clearing where small, furtive flocks still forage in the slant afternoon light of the northern winter. Their random tracks are a cartograph in the snow, a star chart of an unknown galaxy of cold.

:28

The listener who has been still in the still world for a long time turns into the dusk. The clearing will soon fall silent.

1:23

In the “false spring” of the January thaw, one or two of winter’s singers test their voices in their flights back to their night roosting sites.

The last sound of January is the note of a solitary Black-capped Chickadee hitting the freezing night air.