Another snow day

As was the case for most of the eastern half of the country, we woke up to a very snowy landscape on Wednesday—and it didn't look like it'd be letting up anytime soon. So we had a day off from work, which meant I had a chance to do some birdwatching.

First up, just to give you a sense of how much snow we'd gotten overnight, a shot of what my feeder looked like first thing in the morning:



A Titmouse that picked through the snow to snag a bite to eat:



This was the first Junco I've ever seen on my feeder:





A few Chickadee pictures:





I would think this tided the Chickadee over for a little while, at least:



A lucky catch of this Chickadee doing a taste test:



Think this Titmouse was trying to catch some snowflakes on its tongue?



This White-breasted Nuthatch got two for the price of one, as that bit of yellow is a piece of corn frozen onto the peanut:



Finally, a photo I took on Thursday morning; I heard a Cardinal when I walked out of the post office, and after a quick scan of the nearby trees spotted it up in some branches:

Snow day

As you may already know, we here in the Eastern part of the country enjoyed (and I use the term very, very loosely) our first Nor'easter of the winter last night. We already had a bit of accumulation when I went to bed last night, but when I woke up... well, I think this shot of the snow piled on an old bird's nest pretty much says it all:



While I was photographing the nest, a White-breasted Nuthatch landed on a nearby branch; in this shot it's got its feathers puffed up to ward off the cold:



I figured most of the birds would spend the day hunkered down somewhere to wait out the storm, but apparently it takes a lot more than a couple feet of snow to dampen their spirits—not to mention their appetites.



A few shots of various Goldfinches up on the hook holding the feeder:







I even have a new bird to introduce to the blog, as I discovered while I was going through my images that a pair of birds I'd mistaken for sparrows of some sort were in fact Pine Siskins. First up, a look at the female Siskin—note the hint of yellow down toward the tips of her wings:



A shot of the male, where you can see not only the yellow markings (I have no idea how I managed to miss the bird's coloring the first time around) but its distinctive thin, sharply pointed beak:



And the two of them on the feeder; they really managed to hold their own whenever a Goldfinch tried to kick them off their perch:



I also suspect I was followed home yesterday, as I had my first Redpoll stop by the feeder today:





The snow finally began tapering off shortly after noon, which meant I unfortunately had to start thinking about digging out my car—a task I was dreading more than usual for obvious reasons (mine's the one on the right):



Ultimately, I ended up having to completely clear the area directly in front of my car—which, thanks to the plow and the wind, meant I began my shoveling at waist level (thankfully, it was cold enough that we got a dry, fluffy snow; if it'd been the wet, heavy kind I'd probably still be outside digging). Then I used the shovel to get the worst of the snow off the hood and windshield, and then finally dug a path to my car door (making it wide enough so I could then open said door). Gotta love all-wheel drive, though, as after I got it started my car pulled out of its spot with no more difficulty than if this had been a mid-summer day.

However, before any of that happened I had to clear a path from my front door. Which wasn't so bad directly in front of my door, but meant a bit more work once I got to where the snow had drifted across my walkway:



Good times. How many months is it until spring, again?

It keeps snowing and snowing and snowing...

Good news: I made it home safe and sound.

Bad news: It hasn't stopped snowing all day. Like, at all. In fact, instead of easing up—as all the weather predictions indicated it would—it's only intensified as the day has gone along. Thankfully it's the kind of light, fluffy snow that's easy to shovel and clean off one's car.

So, you get more wintry pics today.

First, a look at my front walk when I first arrived back home after being away for 3 days:

And this is how it looked after I'd shoveled my way to my front door:

Finally, a shot of the barn next door about three hours after I got home, at which point it was seriously coming down out there: