If you ain’t a Vermonter, then ya probably haven’t heard ‘if you don’t like Vermont weather, wait a minute’.
Vermont weather is a petulant, prepubescent with a broken X-Box.
Northern Vermont especially & most definitely.
My minutes-from-Canada weather is persistently changing…morphing from 80 degrees to 30 degrees while you sneeze.
[I never really put my winter clothes away…]
Extreme? count on it
Winter is here
…overnight.

A wild wind storm brought a couple inches of snow, the top layer all crusted & icy.

So, why am I giddy?

The doves & crows are back in town!
Bliss!

The driveway ala carte is back in business after a near month hiatus.
The final crops of the season were harvested, boasting copious amounts of food which proved more tempting for a bird than a siren to an argonaut. The doves & crows gorged themselves elsewhere. [shamelessly, no doubt]

I continued the stock the driveway, anxious for their return.

Days would ebb with no customers other than a random finch or jay.
During the night, tho, somebody was gobbling everything up! This nighttime food bandit hoovered up every last bit so that, in the morning, it appeared as tho I had never fed a bird in my life!
I decided to set up the *game camera to catch them red hooved!

Then, this morning? Guess!
Crows!

(If I had to put money on it, I would say they were the two remaining babies from spring & one adult from the family. It isn’t that they look so distinct, or, that I have some seriously astounding crow identification abilities…. Nah, it is their interactions with one another which is why I’d wager it’s them.)
They came when I was having a coffee…so, I was all ill prepared & shit- no camera.
I’ll get some snaps of the onyx beauties, but, until then…here are doves & blurry jays in zee snow to give you a happy 💙

 

 

*Game cameras utilized a means to premeditate the murder of an innocent animal furthers the proof that hunting isn’t sport. It is nothing more than cold blooded, animal serial killing.

 

~hyde

 

P.S. Rete mirabile [Latin for “wonderful net] is a fine, netlike pattern of arteries interweaving blood from a bird’s heart down through their legs & feet. The veins cool the blood, & only a little bit goes down into their tootsies. This is so they don’t lose much heat & keep their little bird feets from freezing.  Neato.