Warmer

Finally the temperature rose above freezing.  An oriole was up before me, working on the suet.  A downy woodpecker wanted to share.  A blue jay picked up what fell in the snow.  The song sparrow perched on the empty hanger for the mealworm dish.  Yellow rumped warblers wanted suet too. 

Someone fed a crow what looked like a stale roll, which it perched on our dock to eat.  The tide was very low and, where the current flowed near the opposite bank the creek, ice melted and I saw mallards and an egret taking advantage. 

I tossed out a small piece of orange but the oriole ignored it.  So, after lunch I put it and some jelly in the mealworm dish and dropped that back into the hanger.  The oriole found that quickly and gobbled jelly.  A pair of pine warblers showed up for some suet.  Juncos joined the sparrows.  Titmice and wrens were around as well.

Broken overcast came and went, and was thin enough for weak sunlight most of the day.  Icicles dripped and snow settled and leaked, but it was far from gone when the sun set.