This morning, Puget Sound awakened to an ice storm. Viv and I cautiously took the car about five blocks away before losing control of it on the ice and returning home. As I write this, the radio reports that I-5 offramps are blocked by jackknifed Metro busses.
The snow on our yard was beautiful in the dawn fog. When Viv and I stepped out of the car we took a few moments to listen to the chatter and song of literally hundreds of birds of all sorts in the trees around the house. Sparrows, chickadees, robins, a Steller’s Jay, crows, starlings, and possibly a pair of small brown woodpeckers were jostling for roost space in the tallest of our trees, singing and squawking and chasing one another through the branches and into the air.
Curious, I tried to record the birdsong on the Treo. The result was good enough to drive my cats crazy when played back inside the house, ears twitching and heads turning, seeking the source of the chirps and tweets. Sadly, I inadvertently nuked it from the card in attempting to get it posted herein.
UPDATE: e.nature’s multimedia bird ID guide helped us finger many of the avians we saw this morning.