Snowy Sights

[yourlibrarian]

A big flock (larger than we captured here given their frequent movement) of common starlings were circling about this week. It seemed like we might be a food stop on their way to someplace else.





I love seeing snow on trees, especially evergreens, where it changes their color from a distance.





It's always so fascinating how nights with snow cover mean a darkness near the ground shading into white light above that makes the night bright enough to go out in. This was taken late in the evening yesterday.

Comments

[adafrog]

:)

[yourlibrarian]

🦚^_____^

[full_metal_ox]

The diagonal slash of bejeweled holiday lighting against the near-achromatic strata of sky, snow, and pond: right there’s your Christmas card.

[yourlibrarian]

Good point!

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That is a lot of starlings. I've seen blackbirds do that here.

[cmcmck]

Starlings here have taken to staying put in the Winter which never used to be the case.

[shirebound]

I really enjoy your pics... especially that last one! Folks are just beginning to decorate here.

Re: Wow!

[yourlibrarian]

We don't tend to see big flocks. Even though we have a lot of house sparrows around, they tend to cluster in bushes and aren't in the open in large numbers. So this definitely caught our eye.

[yourlibrarian]

Oh interesting -- is it much warmer now? I've heard that hummingbirds in southern California have largely stopped migrating as well.

[yourlibrarian]

Some years back we split our inside and outside decorating, in part to make the time shorter. But it was also because doing it early meant we could take advantage of better weather as it was often either snowy or rainy or just very cold by Thanksgiving. It's hard to do some things in gloves!

This year was the earliest we've ever done it but we're really glad we did. 50s over 30s and windy is definitely preferable.

[shirebound]

So smart!!

[scintilla10]

Aw, love those shots of birds in the snow, how lovely!

[yourlibrarian]

Ooh, like your icon!

[turlough]

Such pretty snow! I'm so envious! We got some very early snow in late November but it soon disappeared and now everything is dark and dreary here again.

[yourlibrarian]

Ours is a bit of a mixed bag. We had a previous snow but this one is sticking around because it's been quite cold here. But yes, I'll take it given I don't have to be outdoors 😉