THE SUN ON THOSE CHILLY PRE-WINTER DAYS

Being an early morning person who prefers the colder weather, these last couple of days have been fantastic in my book.  (Apologies to those of you who are sleep-in-and-I-like-it-warm people.)  Yesterday was just amazing.  I love the color of the light in the trees and I love being in the sun when it is cold.  In the summer, I avoid the sun, but it is so pleasant to feel it through the cool breeze when paddling on a fall afternoon.  Last night Linda & I sat down by the pond and watched it get dark.  Just like morning, the light changes in the trees and it is quite magnificent.

The critters are definitely hunkering down for the cold weather.  Most of the migratory birds are gone and those who migrate to us from the north are here chowing down!  I'm filling the bird feeders at least once a day.  We have a flock of about 20 dark-eyed juncos and I swear every goldfinch in the county is in our yard!  Am I complaining, no... I love it.  The coopers hawk likes what shows up at that feeder, too!  (The don't eat the seeds, they eat the seed-eaters and pickings are easier when there are a lot of birds in one place.)  

The funny thing about the migrating birds, like the juncos, is that we are listed in the year-round area, but right here, we don't usually have them much in the summer, we just get those who have moved south. (Our juncos are the slate-colored variety of the dark-eyed, in case you are looking at a book to see what they look like)  Likewise, the purple finch are year round birds, but I have rarely seen them here in the summer.  Some, like the robins, are also winter migrants from the north - our birds that we had all summer have mostly gone south further, but for the north birds, we are south and they have arrived!  The blue jays are northern birds and they stay year-round as do the woodpeckers. (we regularly have downy, hairy, redbellied.  We have pileated, too, but they are shier and don't come to the feeder.  I'd love to again see the one I saw a couple weeks ago!

Linda & I have this morning ritual, where by 5:30 AM we are out on our porch, overlooking the pond, with a cup of coffee and wrapped in blankets (the dog is under my blanket, keeping my lap warm!).  It is dark, but there are lots of sounds.  This morning we had a screech owl from the other side of the pond and there was a lot of splashing in the pond.  It is an active time of day and we feel blessed to share 10-15 minutes of it with the critters.  The dog seemed to be hearing something near the pond this morning and I thought I was seeing something dark pass in front of a spot that was reflecting some of the sky light (cloudy, so it was pretty diffuse).  I did the look at it out of the corner of your eye trick, but could never tell if my eyes were playing tricks on me, or if I was seeing something moving down there.  Morning mysteries.

Anyone seen the otters recently?  I saw two swans taking off and flying low over the pond on Friday.