Phenology Site Visit: two days before new moon, four days before winter solstice

I paid a visit to my phenology site this morning. Snow is falling thickly, generating a mood that is conducive to certain kinds of meditation. I find myself curious about the sky again - this sky, like the blue sky, feels "distance-less" somehow, (not like a partly cloudy sky, where the clouds appear to have clearly defined boundaries, distances, shapes, and heights), and I think that gazing into a distance-less colour must be one of the factors that stimulates meditative states, at least for a mind that is shaped like mine. I let my mind wander over my memories of the blue sky, and I recall learning that physical sciences tell us that the blue of the sky comes not from the reflection of light off of a surface, but rather from the refraction of light by the many molecules of the atmosphere ... in that sense, the blue could be said to be at every distance from our eyes within the atmosphere, which means it's both farther away and closer that the trees that we can see, though of course it still always appears to be behind them. On the other hand, the sun is definitely farther away than the blue sky, and yet the blue sky does not "cover" the sun. This appears as a fundamental difference between the blue sky and the gray sky of snowfall. The grey sky is also at every distance, because it is generated by the shadows of all the many snowflakes, and yet this sky does cover the sun, though it is "no farther away" than the blue sky. Thus even a cloudless blue sky has at least one feature, sometimes two (the moon being the occasional attendant), and both of these sky companions bring a sense of time to us with both their position within and their movement across the sky, so the gray sky feels more "timeless" than the clear blue sky. The elements of air and of water generate distinct versions of the sky when one or the other of them predominates in the atmosphere.

Then too, the form the water takes makes a difference too. The snowy sky generates a hush that the rainy sky does not, which is one of the features of the winter where I live that I have always loved. Though a raining sky may appear as a distance-less gray too, the raindrops fall with relatively high velocities, in relatively straight, lines, or at least lines of constant curvature, hitting the ground with a readily audible splat. The snowflakes, because of their spread out structure and low density, fall in slowly wandering pathways, contacting the ground gently, and incrementally building a layer of thickness that muffles other sounds as well. The snowing sky has a different tempo than the raining sky, as well as a different volume. The slow tempo, soft volume, and timeless visage of the snowing sky make an atmosphere most conducive to the contemplative aspects of my soul. In my winter coat, I ironically hear the sounds of snowflakes hitting the synthetic fabric of the hood of my coat, a sound that would otherwise be inadubile, but has become for me emblematic of my outdoor winter experiences.

Eventually, I did see a falcon shaped, smaller than crow sized bird fly low overhead, attended by at least two magpies, and the call of a chickadee hit my ears close on the heels of the images of these birds. I saw the falcon shaped bird a second time several moments later flying in the opposite direction, and caught sight of a rust coloured belly, narrow pointed wings, and narrow fan-shaped tail. I don't know my bird ID well enough to be sure this was a merlin kin, but I also don't know who else of this size and shape would be around.