Bluebirds in the Snow
The most noticeable birds as I walked through the neighborhood, though, were Eastern Bluebirds – they seemed to have come into bloom everywhere. Three blue, blue males with rose-orange breasts perched in a small, bare-limbed tree in one yard as I walked past, stunning against a clear blue sky and white snow all around.
A little further on, a small mixed flock of Eastern Bluebirds and warm-yellow Pine Warblers foraged in open patches of brown grass, where the snow had already melted. And at several spots along the road, Bluebirds flew, flashing their colors. I don’t think there were more than usual, really, but the reflective brilliance of the snow and unusually dry, clear air lit everything with unusual clarity.
A Red-tailed Hawk, for instance, came sailing low overhead as I was watching a column of about a dozen Black Vultures soaring and circling upward. Its cream-white, shining shape made me catch my breath, partly because it came so suddenly into view, more because I could see it with such clear detail – the widespread wings, whitish breast and underside, streaked band across the belly, brown hood, and the darker brown of the back and top side of the wings, the dull red-orange of the tail, with the touch of white at the base.