Blustery

Yesterday the prediction for today was sun, but instead the sky was dark gray and hanging heavy.  The birds were hungry.  Sparrows, wrens, chickadees, cardinals, and downy woodpeckers stocked up despite the wind.  Egrets, pelicans, gulls, cormorants, and and ducks fished.

A male downy woodpecker has a dark belly.  I think it's skin showing where feathers are missing.  It could be a brood patch but it is awfully early for that. 

In the late morning the sky half cleared and the wing got even more fierce.  A parade of at least six egrets flew downstream.  Two great blue herons joined them. Gulls played on the gusts.  And then, right about noon, snow fell.  It was very light and melted on contact with the ground, but still. 

The cormorants, egrets, pelicans, and gulls passed through again around 1pm.  Mallards circled in their wake, why I don't know.  The clouds were thick again by then. Breaks opened and closed throughout the afternoon, making sunbeams and drama. 

Again in the late afternoon the fishing birds returned.  At one point there were six egrets on the dock.  At the feeders, a titmouse joined the others and doves appeared as well.  Sunset gilded the clouds.  .