March Snow

This morning's snowfall could not have been more beautiful. The landscape was colorless in the gray light. The early morning was windless, and the flakes sifted from the sky. Overnight a deer had licked the bird feeder clean of sunflower seeds, which should serve as a lesson to me not to bother filling it in the evening so the birds won't have to wait. Two red-bellied woodpeckers called to each other, and when I walked downhill through the snow to get the paper from the driveway a cardinal and a Carolina wren were singing.



Four years ago we had an inch of snow on March 26, which didn't stop a rufous-sided towhee from gleaning seeds from under the feeder, and three years ago it snowed on March 18, March 20, March 21 and during the first week of April. We can expect wood frogs and spring peepers to start calling from the swamps any day now.