Get Thee to...

 A sixty-degree morning in January is a sign from the universe to Hie Thyself Outside, so that's what I did. My forty-five-minute walk through the neighborhood revealed a number of interesting details in an area that a friend and I were lamenting as boring only last night.

• The chickadees were REALLY vocal this morning, more so in people's yards than in the wildlife refuge. I'm not sure if there were more of them than usual, or if they were just being noisy.
• The tufted titmice are singing, not just doing their usual winter squawking.
• A single Canada goose went honking overhead, leading to the temptation to burst into "The Lone Wild Bird." For the sake of the neighbors, I refrained but did wonder why this usually social bird was flying around by itself.
• What appeared for a moment to be a pair of fiberglass deer proved to be two smallish but very much living ungulates, noted when the buck raised his head to give me the "are you going to bother me" look. The doe was so small that I suspect her to be one of this year's fawns, and seeing her hanging out with a male of the species prompted a reaction similar to the one caused by pregnant teenage humans: not yet.
• Heading home, I noticed a flock of Canada geese flying in the opposite direction from the singleton sighted earlier. Did it locate its group?
• A neighbor yesterday mentioned more hawks and falcons in the neighborhood, and sure enough, this morning a small hawk of some kind went sailing over the golf course. The light was too bad to see any markings, but from the size and shape, I'm guessing a Cooper's hawk. The LBBs at our feeders will need to be careful.
• The coreopsis and obedient plant in the driveway beds are spreading.

Message from the universe: boring is in the mind of the beholder.