Bundle Up or Fluff Up!

Winter weather hit us yesterday.  Without even knowing the forecast, I could tell from the number of birds at our feeders that some colder weather was coming.  I try to go for a walk everyday, and yesterday morning I was thinking how nice it was to walk on bare ground in January.  Today I walked in about 2 -3" of light, fluffy snow and that was good, too... except when the wind picked up!  

I was bundled up, but the wind was ferocious.  I didn't last outside as long as usual.

At first I was in the shelter of some trees, along the edge of this field.

It was fun to see that someone else had walked thru this snow before me.  

This is looking back.  You can see my tracks there now, and some of the snow blowing out of the tops of the trees.  The snow still had not blown off the weeds.

I'm always checking the fields for birds that might not come to my feeders, but there were none today.  I also check the coniferous trees.... maybe I'll see a crossbill or a red-breasted nuthatch, you never know!

We have a very heavy crop of cones this year, so maybe sometime this winter I'll see some unusual birds on them.  But there were none today.

There is always something interesting to see though.  I really like how the snow melted and formed a garland of sorts on this old gate.

Not sure when it got warm enough to melt, but perhaps the early sunshine warmed the metal enough.

I had planned to walk all the way around my usual loop.  But this was happening:

You really can't see the full effect in the photo, but snow was blowing across the field like crazy!

Go that way, or back the way I came?

Looking back at my trail, I notice that I walked rather like a drunken sailor.  Ha ha... well, I was stopping every so often to look around.  The weather looks okay in that photo, but that's an illusion... here's a video:

I made the decision to head back toward home!

I could watch the birds from inside our warm house.  Even though I had bundled up, my fingers were frozen (from taking my mittens off to take photos).  

I'm venturing out again soon to replenish the bird feeders.  The birds eat a lot on these kind of days.  Even though they can fluff up to keep warm, they need to eat a lot to keep their inner fires burning.

This downy woodpecker was being buffeted by the wind, while he was having a buffet of high-energy suet nuggets.

You can see how fluffed up this goldfinch was - he doesn't need a down vest, he already has one built in.

The snowbirds (dark-eyed juncos) don't seem to mind the weather, though you can see I need to get out there and restock the bird table... there's not much food left on it.

It's time for me to bundle up again and go outside to feed them.  Brrr!