Open Winter

Somebody's watching

This sort of weather has its downsides. There are folks, not including myself, who love outdoor sports...braaaaap....

There is mud.

Muddy dogs. 

Lots of ice when it freezes. Lots of days when the animals can't be out because of the slipperiness. 

However, there is also the real and genuine possibility of walking all the way to the Stolen Car Field and back, knocking those 10,000 steps a day right out of the park and getting a female Harrier and a Red-bellied Woodpecker for first of the year birds.

Probably an Eastern Bluebird too, but I couldn't quite be sure through the binoculars when he perched on the chopper chute....and with the camera I got a lovely, sharp, clear, shot of the chopper chute.

There were crows, over a hundred of them. Ninety odd robins. (Well, forty or so of them were probably even). A couple hundred or so starlings.

Tempestuous skies, scudding clouds, tracks and traces of coyotes and deer. Turkey tracks, although no turkeys...

There is warmth in the January sun...

Cold in the January wind...

Crows ride it like a crystal pony, wings flashing neon white and bear-coat-black in the low-lying sun.

Shout and lecture like a mile of math teachers, geometry on sky, hexagons, cubes, and diamonds of noise and self-importance.....I wonder what they are yelling about.