Snow Birds

When we left the house yesterday to go chasing after waxwings there were clear blue skies. When we reached the Hook is was completely overcast. As we were driving home it started to snow, slowing traffic considerably, much to our chagrin.

When we arrived home there was already two plus inches of snow on the ground (the slow traffic giving the snow plenty of time to accumulate -- arrggghh).

Which just meant the turkeys had to dig a bit to get to the food in the yard.

The snow was falling heavily, large flakes made of multiple snow crystals. The snow was actually building up on the bird's backs.

They would occasionally stand up and flap their wings to clean it off (note the back bird's back).

But for the most part it didn't seem to trouble them. And they stayed for over an hour. Pecking away at the snow.

The turkeys are quite frightening to the other birds who take to the trees while the turkeys are in the yard. This is so even though there are multiple feeders well above ground level.

Click on the image above to bigafy it. There are numerous dark-eyed juncos, several northern cardinals, and two sparrows, one each of white throated and fox. (There may be more, that's just what I could find, leave a comment if you find something else.)

Overnight it rained and today the temps were well above freezing. So we have a yard full of slush, which will turn to ice overnight tonight. Yippee!