Counting on life in a white winter

I feel a need to watch for signs of life in the winter garden, especially during a season as hard as this one. Today I’m counting birds while taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count.  I enjoy watching the antics of black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice. Dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows hop about for seeds spilled on a snow bank. A female cardinal visits the feeder and there is the call of a blue jay, and the drumming of a woodpecker up in the bare, windswept canopy. 

Snow is piled high. It obliterates form, covering bird baths and creating snow caves under shrubs. Only the stiffest and tallest stems poke up through the snow - red osier dogwood, purple top grass (now straw gold), brown seed heads almost pecked clean. Yet more fresh snow is falling as the daylight fades and tree branches are defined by a dusting of white.

Promise of spring

Yesterday radiant heat from the sun was melting the blanket of snow and my face was warmed along with my mood. Melt water was audibly dripping revealing flowering snowdrops and crocuses in small pockets of bare earth.

Today is a dull day with snow in the forecast. But the birds are singing as fervently as ever. I’ve been observing them for the Great Backyard Bird Count. The squirrels must be hunkered down because they seem to be leaving the bird feeder alone letting the chickadees and titmice have a free run. A northern cardinal is singing high up in the holly tree. White-throated sparrows are scratching about in exposed leaf litter. A song sparrow spends some time in the safety of the cage surrounding the feeder. A furtive dark-eyed junco is hopping about beneath. A white-breasted nuthatch spirals down the trunk of an oak tree and in the distance I spot a downy woodpecker. Last but not least, the tiny Carolina wren pays a fleeting visit to round off my list.

The season mellows

Red Admiral butterfly

There is so much to enjoy in this season of migrants and mellow yellow fruitfulness. The goldenrod flowers have faded, but there are splashes of yellow, orange and red besides turning leaf color. I have seen them on tail feathers of yellow-rumped warblers, the throat of a common yellowthroat and on the wings of migrating red admiral butterflies. The marigolds in the vegetable garden always seem to be at their prime just before they are nipped by frost. Red-osier dogwood stems (despite being chomped on by deer), chokeberry and winterberry furnish with reds. By contrast, amongst the pastel colors of the meadow, ripened seeds feed finches of muted color. Brown feathers of hen-of-the-woods fungus billow from the base of an oak tree. Today, the dark-eyed juncos returned.