Just the back yard!? Nah, I want the front and side yards landscaped in natives too.



Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts

Saturday, May 9, 2020

Yesterday, I was really not looking forward to the forecast of snow and a low of 30°F...it actually impacted my mood.  I was bummed.

This morning, however, I ended up.braving the cold and strolling the property with camera in hand.  By the time I got to the second acre, I spotted the pair of bluebirds at the staghorn sumac berries.  I started taking photos...that is when I noticed other species there as well--at least one that I did not recognize.   (It ended up being an Eastern kingbird--thanks to a quick Internet search.)

Aside from the birds (which was a huge highlight), I enjoyed being surrounded by a greening world, several trees leafing out, the serviceberry still blooming, birds singing, the sun streaming down...and...snow blowing around as it fell--not what I expected, well into May--but it made for an almost magical moment. 

Now, spring can resume.  (Another day or two with lows near freezing, but then it should warm up again.)

Quite a lot of photos from today...












Friday, March 10, 2017

Snow Day 2017

Having an unexpected day off is nice.



After about two weeks of way above average temperatures in February, I was ready for an early spring--and even hopeful that we'd have no more winter weather.  Last week changed that with overnight temperatures in the single digits.  Although, I knew they were predicting some snow late last night into today, I was hoping to just have a two-hour delay.  That is what I got, but, once I was dressed for work (and not quite ready to go), our school closed.

Being off from work, I decided to finally start sorting through the tons of photos that I've taken.  Since I had been taking pictures, but never getting around to sorting them let alone posting them, I finally pretty much stopped taking pictures (except with my smartphone!).  However, instead of sorting photos, I began taking them again.  With the snow providing a beautiful backdrop, I began snapping picture after picture of the birds that come to the seed I put out for them.

After taking countless pictures, I switched the display from the traditional viewfinder to the digital display screen--that was when I was finally alerted to the fact that there was no memory card in the camera.  I had left it in the computer when transferring my last batch! :(

I will never know if those shots that I thought were so awesome really were.  So, I started again.  I was even able to recapture one shot of a few mourning doves still perched in the same spot in the distant trees.  The rest that I took still have the same mood as those lost forever.

Here are a few of the better ones:



 




Despite the snow, spring was in the air.  The trilling calls of the red-winged blackbirds filled the morning air.  Later in the day, I spotted a robin eating the berries from the sumac.  Later, perched outside one of our kitchen windows, the robin, too began singing.


Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Cheerful Sight


After weeks of unseasonably warm weather and what looked like a very early spring, temperatures plummeted and we got an inch or so of snow this weekend.  Although I was used to working out in the yard in 60-70 degree weather, I still got out and did a lot this past weekend...but what I want to share now are some of the photographs I got of birds in the snow.  Something that seemed to be lacking most of the winter.

I was thrilled to be out with camera in hand, and take shot after shot of the small flock of goldfinches perched in the largest dogwood in our front yard.  This dogwood has served me well (and wildlife well also)...I still recall fondly the various species that came in the fall for the berries.  What attracted the goldfinches here was many handy perches as they came for the black oil sunflower seeds I'd put out.








Sunday, October 18, 2015

You've Got to be Kidding Me

First, I can't believe how long it has been since I've posted anything here!  Second, after a long stretch of unseasonably warm weather (which I got very used to), things have gone unseasonable in the other direction; the temperatures went below freezing over night--into the 20s!  We had snow today--not that it lasted.

The last time I put off posting was on April Fools' Day--another day we got snow! (...and I wasn't happy about that either--even though it didn't last either.  (I searched for the April snow pictures, but didn't find them.  I doesn't matter--the purpose of this post it to start me posting again anyway.)


Some flurries this morning and ...
...hail this afternoon.  Okay, I confess, both pics are of hail.
I slept in this morning...and it is hard to take pictures of snow!

I have to get past the idea that everything must be kept in chronological order--that has kept me from posting all sorts of things...until I post what had happened prior to it.

So, later (I'm a procrastinator, remember), I will post some highlights of that past several (plus) months.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Melting...melting...melting...


I remember, when I was a kid, snow seemed to stay around for most of the winter, over the past two decades or so, that rarely seems to happen.  This year, it did.  I was fine with the snow for a long time, but now I'm thinking spring.  So, when it finally started to melt, I tried to document the process:













....and then... the first robin!



...three more robins...



...and then we got MORE SNOW yesterday for the first day of spring!  






Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Weird Weather

After our extended, frigid winter, spring finally seems to have arrived.  We were up in the 70s and even 80 this past weekend, but last night the temperatures dropped below freezing...and it began to snow.

This is what I woke up to this morning:




Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Snow Day!

This is not our first snow day of the winter, and I doubt it will be the last, but it is likely the most snow we've had at once this year (9 inches).  It was a good day to watch the birds in between shoveling the snow.  There have been too few posts of birds this winter compared to past years...at least it seems that way.  I'll try to remedy that.  Finally some bird pictures: