About weather: Be careful what you wish for

I discovered a basic truth in wildlife photography: In order to do it right, your really need to go outdoors. Ha!

It's kind of like the television commercial where a guy says genies take things literally. In the next scene a guy asks a genie for a million bucks only to look out his window to see that many male deer grazing in his yard.

Last week I wrote something about entreating winter to stop teasing and give us some. Well, we got it all right, but more like the buck deer than the dollars. We got winter: a dusting of snow, enough to cover the ground, about 5 inches here. It was so little and so light, a good sneeze would have cleared the yard. Then the temperature went down. So far the worst has been 15 below here but I can't dwell on that because I have several friends living farther north between 30 and 50 below for going on a week now.

Here's a quote from one friend's facebook page: "Still in the deep freeze, with –30F on our hill and a bonechilling -42 downtown. Earlier: Got up to -27 downtown today, then started heading back down. Was -32F at Goldstream Creek on Ballaine at 4 pm, then I started climbing up to our hill as it got "warmer & warmer". -25 at home. I'll take it--much better than the valley floor."

And one from another friend: "TONIGHT...MOSTLY CLEAR. LOWS 35 TO 45 BELOW. VARIABLE WINDS LESS THAN 15 MPH. Only -19 last night here on the ridgetop we call the Banana Belt."

So, we got the cold side of winter, but certainly not the snow kind I wanted so much. On the good side, 17 inches of snow fell near the East Pole so a trip is probably viable.

Meanwhile life got pretty hectic outside the windows. Chickadees puffed out to almost double their normal size are attacking the feeders by the dozen. The chickadees fluff up their feathers when it's cold to trap more insulating air against their bodies. They empty five feeders in about 24 hours and I just bought my fourth 40# bag of sunflower seeds this winter. That's almost the pace the hordes of redpolls went through feed a couple of years.

The pine grosbeaks also puff up but not as noticeably and they've been hitting the feeders pretty hard too. In the cold there have been more juncos picking  through the spilled seed underneath the feeders along with a redpoll or two. And of course there the those two nuthatches sneaking in for a seed when they can. A woodpecker makes his presence known at times with its tapping on nearby trees, but hasn't been on the feeders in a while, at least when I was watching.

Meanwhile the forecast shows warming over the next few days with mostly sunny and partly cloudy skies and temperatures during the day in the 20s. Now, that's perfect. Even better, there is more snow in the forecast.

 

But whoever that weather control being is, honest, I am NOT asking for anything, so no literal interpretations, either that or I will be more specific with requests in the future.

Come on winter, don't tease