Signs of winter

While you'd never know it from the weather (right now 40-something and partly sunny), winter has officially arrived in our yard. Away since their sudden departure last April (or was it March?), the juncos are back. A glance out the dining room window revealed several of the northern sparrows scratching in the mulch under the bird feeders. These little birds breed in Canada or in the western mountains of the US, then after their summer in places cooler than the Mid-Ohio Valley, they come here to escape the worst of the snow and ice.



© Michael Hogan, New Jersey, February 2004. Found at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Given that winter tends to be my least-favorite season (maybe once I don't have to worry about driving to work in snow, that will change), it's always good to know that for some beings, West Virginia is where they go when flying south for the winter.