Why Seven Days?

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White pellets, approximately 1/3 of an inch (and more) wide and of roughly spherical shape, were falling from the sky. The pellets were soft yet not quite mushy, and slightly resilient. The sound of their fall was unlike anything I'd heard before or have heard since. I was pretty sure that the name of this strange substance began with the letter "g," but could not remember the rest of it. So I checked a book and found out that I was right. I had been walking in a fall of the rarest major form of precipitation: graupel.

Graupel (the "au" pronounced the same as the "ow" of "howl") is sometimes called "soft hail" or "snow grains." But when you actually experience it you'll be convinced that it really does deserve its own special name. Graupel is actually an aggregate of cloud droplets, sometimes with a cluster of ice needles or a starshaped snow crystal at the center. Graupel itself is sometimes the core for hailstone. It is most common in blizzards and lake-effect snowstorms. Graupel can be electrified enough to cause bursts of static noise when it hits a radio antenna.

Perhaps one day you will have the chance to see this precipitation and ask friends, "Guess what it's doing outside?" All of their attempts will utterly fail, because it won't be raining, snowing, hailing, or sleeting outside. It'll be graupeling.

The Living World

The First Grackle of Spring
While most of us look forward to the first robin of spring, the wait can seem impossibly long as the February snow continues to pile. But in much of the United States, the lovable robin is preceded by another bird, a bird whose name is not all that well known despite the fact that it is one of the most common in all of North America.

I am referring to the grackle. This black bird-bigger than a robin and smaller than a crow-has a long wedge-shaped tail, dark shiny feathers, and yellow eyes. In addition to spotting it in

GRAUPEL ALERT: This spherical precipitation is often found in blizzards.

North America, you can also see it throughout southern Canada, east of the Rockies. "Grackle" couldn't be a more appropriate name for this bird whose vocalizations seem to be a mixture of creaks, whistles, and gurgles. Like most black birds, this one is also sharp of mind, eye, and beak. It's an admirably smart bird, whose sounds have a primitive, cracked beauty if you open your ears and mind. Unfortunately, the grackle is capable of being a real pest, especially to crop growers. Farmers who grow corn and rice know the grackle well, and probably don't have all that much admiration for their smarts or their vocals. However, we should forgive the grackle for its behavior because it is also a sign of spring.

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