Winter Sun

Every year, we go through six months of increasing daylight and six months of decreasing daylight. Every day just adds a little bit more but one day you just realize that it is now light at certain times of the day. Last night, I noticed it was still light at 6PM and, this morning, it was light before 8AM.

This might have been true for a bit but it only becomes real to you when you notice it I guess. What it does mean is that we are moving towards spring and it feels good. Even with all the snow still on the ground, the increased sunshine is the light at the end of the winter tunnel.

We are supposed to have a few sunny days in a row with daytime highs above freezing which will do a number on the snow. The piles from shoveling that sit in the shadows will be around for much longer but you can already see the ground in spots.

The only problem is that it is still hard to get out and enjoy the sun. The trails in the park are lowest priority and they were still covered in snow on Sunday when we tried to take a walk. This weekend may be better because they’ve had time to clear the paths. Guess we’ll find out.

Had some bird drama yesterday. I’ve mentioned before that we have a Cooper’s Hawk that stalks the birds at our feeders from time to time. Yesterday, he caught something. We were headed out and saw him fly into a tree carrying something. Then, he went to the ground to remove all the feathers (if you ever see a pile of feathers neatly arranged on the ground, it was probably a hawk). From what we could tell, the feathers were all black which probably means a starling and that doesn’t upset me that much since we have far too many of them around.

Can’t really be mad at the hawk for just being a hawk. It is actually pretty amazing how they’ve adapted to living near bird feeders since it provides a constant food source. Just the circle of life in my backyard.

With that, I’ll go find something else to do and maybe just look out at the sun for a bit.