The Winter Birds Have Arrived

It's one of the best things about fall/winter, the changing of the guard in the bird world that happens each year. There are always little rare beauties that take over the bleak duty of midwinter. You never see their variety any other time of the year, and why they choose to spend the winter in such circumstances I will never know. But I am so glad, so grateful they do. Their frames grace the sky with much needed company as the season wanes on. Welcome one and all.

Edited to add this, which I came across several days after writing this post:

"The Snow Birds" by Ben Burroughs, from Sketches, 1965

"I watched a flock of snow birds engaged in finding food,
And I must here and now admit they had great fortitude,
They perched upon the frozen earth as though it were velvet plush,
And when one spied a crust of bread, they all joined in the rush.
High flying are these feathered friends, they come with winter's cold,
And fill the air with lusty song, each time their wings unfold.
Where they hide out when storms invade, is really beyond me,
For there is little shelter in a bony, leafless tree.
They love the freezing temperatures, this no one can deny,
They're migratory Eskimos that love a hazy sky,
But when the springtime comes again, snow birds will fly away,
To head for lands where icy frost, is ready to display."