Sunday, January 30, 2011

Delights of Snow


Weight of snow-laden trees.
When the sun finally presented itself the trees happily shook their burden tossing snow into the air with branches rebounding joyfully upward. The waxwings bombarded the sky with delightful song, I smiled watching their aerobic flight patterns. How do large flocks of birds keep from crashing into each other as they swoop, dive and rise like a wave flowing across the sky?

Early morning view down the street taken from the comfort of a warm abode. Pretty, fresh, delightful and cold, brrr.
 Winter-birds all fluffed up against the cold sporting flashy red.
I don't take people shots much anymore but this bright red coat is gorgeous against the stark snow.

We drove to The Wildbird General Store to get more black-oil sunflower seeds for my feathered friends and also got a suet ball to help the birds survive the cold snaps we are experiencing, its dropped to -25 again so any help they get conserving heat and energy when its this cold helps them to survive. The nuthatches seem to like the suet as they go back and forth between it and the seed-feeder. I am hoping the flicker comes by and finds the suet.

Big hugs and warm thoughts to all!

3 comments:

Carol Blackburn said...

Great shots Teresa, especially love the little red winter bird. May I have your permission to use your photograph to paint him?

Red said...

I can't remember when I saw such large waxwing flocks. Are you seeing larger than usual flocks.
Good snow pictures.

tess stieben said...

Red the flock size seems about normal for what I see here in the winter, that photo shows maybe about one third of the birds that were there, they were lifting and settling continually in the tops of the evergreens. They tend to gather communally for the winter then pair off in spring.

Carol I will email you a higher res image to work from.