November 2: Massing grackles

Seasonal first: I got out my tiny space heater because it was 60 F or less in my apartment! Happiness.

The day started gray and cool and windy, and ended cool and rainy and very windy. I wish I'd made a recording of the wind howling in my window frame! Very wintry sound.

Grackles—medium-size black birds with glossy feathers on the males and piercing, round yellow eyes—don't live here in large numbers in the summer, but they do seem to congregate in the fall and winter. In groups, they can be very loud and sometimes have an eerie, creaky call. The trees outside my balcony were host to a flock of them during the afternoon. They flitted in and among the branches, one by one, but when they realized I was watching them, they started to leave in twos and threes and fly across the street.

November 3: The sky at the end of the day

Another winter-type rainy day. Through most of the day it was misty rain, the kind that accumulates on individual pine needles and makes the branches look like they're covered with heavy dew. Then in the evening the clouds disappeared from the top down: first there was a sense of lightening through the clouds, then the blue of the sky was visible through a thin veil, and finally the sky was clear and all the sun had to do was burn off the fog that was left on the ground. In the evening, the sunlight made everything shine with color. The last thing I remember is a flock of grackles pivoting in the air like a collective quarter horse, soaring in front of the clouds, over and lighting in the top branches of a tall sweet gum still covered in bright orange and yellow leaves.