A Warm Day!

 2-16-21 SHORT HILLS: We continue to get forecasts of snow and ice, but the last two storms were no shows. Last night we got rain that didn’t freeze. It melted a lot of snow, and this afternoon it’s in the forties and sunny. We did a nice walk.The gutters are running with water, and you can hear the water flowing into the sewers that are still  buried under the snow cover. It made me feel that the unlikely arrival of spring was actually conceivable.

I cleared some snow from the mounds in the driveway to make the paths a little wider for the cars. Then I opened up the sewer on the street at the top of our driveway to keep us from getting flooded if there’s a lot of melting in a hurry. 

When I let the dogs out this morning I roused a deer near the back yard feeder. That explains why that feeder has been emptying so fast.   I confirmed that suspicion by finding deer tracks mixed in with the dog  and bird footprints. I also saw something moving high up a tree, something that stayed in the same place for 20 minutes or so. I took a pic, and, of course, it was a squirrel, but it was eating the fat buds on our elm tree—another sign that we will probably have spring some day. 

I took some pix outside sitting on the porch of a couple birds on the suet feeder. The image quality is so much better than shooting through the window. 

I couldn't tell what the squirrel was from the ground and why it didn't move until i got this pic of all those fat elm buds that made for breakfast.

Camera shy deer headed behind the pool when the dogs came out of the house.

White-breasted nuthatch and downy woodpecker posing on the suet feeder.

A couple of the woodpecker, she sat there for a while withput moving at all.