Winter Whites

23 degrees for a high today, but it feels like 3 degrees due to wind chill.  I put my nyjer thistle feeder up today.  I had a wonderful variety and quantity of yard birds today, including:

American Goldfinch
American Robin
Black-Capped Chickadee
Carolina Wren
Dark-Eyed Junco
Eastern Bluebird
House Finch
Northern Cardinal
Tufted Titmouse
White-Breasted Nuthatch

American Goldfinch

Carolina Wren

Eastern Bluebird (female)

Eastern Bluebird (male)

Bird tracks
(probably Dark-Eyed Juncos)

I also had three White-Tailed Deer sheltering in the woods beside my house.  They were foraging first, but before too long, they laid down and rested until I went out to snap a photo during my lunch break and frightened them off.  We often get deer around our house when there is severe wind chill in the winter, because the house is on a hill, and the depressions in the woods provide some shelter from the wind.

White-Tailed Deer (2 out of 3 does)

I did check out some birding spots at lunch, all by car.  Too cold for me today.  First, I stopped at Hopkinton State Park, more to see the lake than to look for birds.  The sky was gorgeous!

From there, I checked for open water at the Sudbury Reservoir, finding only tiny openings on White Bagley Road and a bit bigger opening on Parkerville Road.   Four Mute Swans and two Canada geese were sitting on the ice near the open water at Parkerville Road.

Mute Swans

Along the shore, there were interesting frost crystals on the surface of the ice.

My cats are always indoors, but today Ping looked like she realized just how good she had it!