Whining About the Snow on Saturday

Saturday was our Christmas Bird Count. Three of us met in Lake View about sunrise, hard to tell that though as it was very gray with some moisture in the air. The birds were pretty quiet, but they tend to be in small groups at this time of year. That way it can be feast or famine in counting. Before long it started to snow. That isn't necessarily so bad, but it kept it up and started to spit and sting. We moved on to other areas and sometimes the snow was heavier than others, but we kept getting coated in it. We had to try keeping it out of our binoculars so we could see too. Finally, driving back to the second car we were grateful the cemetery has stakes along the drives so we could tell we were on the road! At that point we usually move on to other sections for maybe an hour, but decided to break early for lunch. Out on the roads we saw cars skidding on the slick surfaces. At home for lunch we watched the snow keep coming down and wimped out and stayed home for the afternoon. That night I photographed the small dogwood tree next door in all its snowy glory. Thus ended the first real snow of the season for us. Today we had rain and a lot of the white stuff is gone. Sigh, couldn't it have come on any other day?

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Designer Credits:
-background: Oscraps Collab TrOpical
-frame: Old Stuff by Jodie McNally Designs
-snowflakes: Flakes Dew by Kitty Designs
-reindeer: Santangles by Maya de Groot
-snow, doodle: Oscraps Collab Winter Wonderland
-tree embossed overlay (with multiply blend): Emboss It Christmas by Merkeley Designs
fonts: Kings of Pacifica, Chicago House, Jellyka, End_less Voyage, Erie

Poinsettia Display

The city greenhouse has a spectacular display of poinsettias every year. I love to see them and always want to photograph poinsettias looking lush, lovely and festive. The grounds around the greenhouse are one of our afternoon stops on the Christmas Bird Count where we are especially looking for mockingbirds. We also like to pop into the building for their heated rest rooms. This year I also made a brief stop to see the flowers, but had to wait for my lens to clear up from the fog it immediately developed coming into the humid warmth from the icy outdoors.

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Designer Credits: Credits:
kit Time Began In a Garden by Retro Designs
fonts: Classic, Boopee, Planet Benson 2

Christmas Bird Count Today

Today was our Christmas Bird Count, one of the biggest birding days for us. We cover Lake View Cemetery in the morning and various places in the afternoon. It was sunny, a bit like the photo from last week. There was snow cover and ponds frozen, streams partly frozen. We started at 7:30 when it was light, but sunrise wasn't until 7:48. It was about 14 F. with SSW winds creating a wind chill of only 2 F. We do dress warmly, so were never too cold, or at least not for long. It did warm up, but only to about 30.

We didn't see a lot of birds and missed some goodies we saw earlier in the month, but we did have our special Merlin though only in the late afternoon. We are just a small part of the whole group covering our count circle, so it will be interesting to see the overall result.

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Designer Credits: kit Spicy Winter by Lady Papillon
fonts: Girls are Weird, Scriptina, Tempus Sans ITC