Real Snow - and snowbirds

As I said, my Russian co-worker Viktoria greeted me with a cheerful - and very Russian - "C первым снегом! (S pervym snegom - Happy First Snow!") Tuesday when we got a little spitting of flakes that didn't even stay on the grass for ten seconds before they were gone. Yesterday I said to her, "С первым настоящим снегом! (Happy first real snow)" and she laughed.



We had four or so inches of snow. It's still here today, though the roads are clear; tomorrow it will likely melt, since it's getting into the 40s.



But today was white and pretty -



with some red and green for seasonal coloration -



and in the dawn the old moon in the new moon's arms, caught in the trees under Venus. Not the greatest shot, but sort of Impressionist...



A rather photogenic crow sat in a bare tree in the early dawn amid the falling snow yesterday morning.



And guess who showed up, right on time? Snowbirds. Haven't seen juncos since last spring, but here they were today, bobbing around and flying off as soon as I tried to get their pictures. I have several blurry little gray and white blobs - and one dark shot (it was late, almost sunset) that came out nicely.



and more returning winter birds: a pair of blue jays! I never thought of them as migratory - this is hardly the "far north" of their range, but I haven't seen them since March. Maybe they've been around, and maybe they just came back from someplace else where they summered. At any rate, here they were, in two different trees. Nice to see them back - and the little gray bits, too.