Wet

Clearly it had rained overnight. There were puddles reflecting a gray sky.  I  saw two herons, one after the other fly upstream.  A red breasted nuthatch visited the suet  Squirrels scampered and flirted. The rain began again mid morning. I went shopping for suet and let myself be talked into little tubs of bark butter.  My hope is that they will do better in the rain than the balls have.  When I got back, a pine warbler was eating suet.  

The rain quit in the afternoon and there were even a few moments of sunlight.  A "gulp" of cormorants perched all over the logs on the lake.  The clouds were disappearing by sunset.

Sunshine

At least three white throats scuttled around in the mulch.  A blue jay grabbed a bark butter ball but did not return.  Then a couple of red breasted nuthatches worked on the suet.

A crow found something other crows wanted but it did not seem palatable.  I couldn't tell if it was a flat fish, a bird's wing, or a piece of trash. 

A few hooded mergansers and mallards joined the geese on the creek.  A heron flew over them.  Later an egret hunted along the water's edge. 

Freeze?

The temperature was supposed to drop to 32 overnight, but I didn't see any frost.  And the portulaca appeared to have survived.  But I thought there might have been a skin of ice on the birdbath.  It was a pretty, sunny day, but I never saw any wildlife beyond geese and a buzzard.

Bright and cold

I left before dawn for an early meeting.  A bright morning-star planet and the waning moon followed me.  As the sun rose, I saw a huge flock of crows headed South toward downtown Norfolk.  When I got home, mid morning, I glimpsed a pelican flying downstream.  The sky was split with haze congealing to streaks in the South and clear blue in the North.

A few hoodies were on the creek.  A downy visited the suet.  A great blue heron stalked along the lake in the twilight.  There were sufficient little cumulus clouds to catch the sunset.

Morning rain

It was just gray at breakfast.  The rain started around 10:30am.  The nuthatch returned for more suet.  Buffleheads and hoodies fished on the creek.  A lot of trash had been swept into the water.  Yellow jackets were joined on the camellia blossoms by flies.

In the afternoon, some sun got through the clouds.  The rain had softened jelly fungus and popped up more honey-brown mushrooms. It greened the lichens and moss on the dogwood trunk, yes on the North side.  Parsley germinated all over the French drain, instead of in the mulch where I want it.  The tropical milkweed was still in bloom. 

Nuthatch irruption

I saw in Mary Reid Barrow's column that this was another winter when the red breasted nuthatches came South, but today I finally saw one.  That was the only winter migrant songbird today.  Chickadees and cardinals were the only others.

On the creek there were some migrant ducks, but I didn't get any pictures so I'm not sure which species.  Cormorants were fishing when the light was low.  Crows were ubiquitous.  And it was a lovely day, warm enough for pollinators under a bright blue sky.

Rain

It was a bit warmer so naturally it was wet.  When I first got up, there was sunshine on the treetops but clouds covered the sky very quickly.  A male bufflehead dived in the creek while a heron perched on a lake snag.  The tide was up in the grass.

The rain began in the late morning.  Songbirds were busy when we got home.  A white throat took a bath.  A Carolina wren got away without a photo.  Chickadees and cardinals  dashed for seeds when the rain slackened.  A dove poked around underneath.

On the creek, buffleheads and hoodies fished in the rain.  I took the long way back from the library and saw a heron and mallards at the head end of the lake.  Across the road, in the upper lake, an egret waited and a couple of small ducks floated.