Drear!
I lifted title from a line in an old Flanders and Swann song about the weather. They talk about January but February works for me. It’s drear this morning in the park and cold enough to keep some ice on the ponds. Delightful word, drear, and apt. I’m looking for birds but they are are hardly stirring. The Peafowl are still perched high in a fir, almost out of sight, ‘staying in bed’ on this grey Sunday morning, a dozen lumps like enormous chickens. Most of the Mallards and Widgeon are dozing too but the Black Duck that has shown up here for the past three or four winters is out trying to cadge a meal.
American Black Duck
Small birds are moving but mostly staying out of sight. I spot a couple of Golden-crowned Kinglets and a Towhee but mostly it’s a turned into a ‘birding by ear’ day. The still, damp air seems to amplify bird sounds. No singing yet, just the thin ‘yawk’ of Red-breasted Nuthatches, the chitter of Kinglets, the harsh faulty-doorbell call of Spotted Towhees.
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Spotted Towhee
I hoped to see the Sharp-shinned Hawk I spotted the other day but have no luck in that regard. Luckily, I got some good shots last time so I’m going to pretend.
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Back to the word bl**dy in my title. My English mother used to scold me if I used it, saying that ‘we don’t use that word around this house’. It’s blasphemy rather than swearing, I think, but likely my mother just thought it was ‘common’. To this day, I’m reluctant to spell it out. My father, usually very proper, often used the word, as in ‘get you bl**dy feet off the table!’. But I digress. Still, it really felt like bl**dy February again — today –in the park.
Bird Noetz 