We've had snow on the ground for nearly a week, now. Being New England, this is not news. I measured it in the driveway prior to snowblowing and it was 8.5 inches--which is a fair amount, but not earth-shaking--but the warm weather and rain since then has pretty much reduced it to three or four inches of white ice.

One of the things it HAS brought into sharp relief, however, is the birds. Perhaps this is just because it's easier to see the little dark bastids against the snow than it is against leaves and stuff. But after digging myself out of the house last snowstorm (which I think was last Wednesday) I went for a drive to get out of the house (and buy chicken for stew) and what struck me was the FLOCKS and FLOCKS of only TWO types of birds.

The first is juncos, which I have noted before, many a time. Juncos are THE winter bird around these parts. Yeah, we get the occasional cardinal or blue jay (not too too often, since Mojo does not feed the birds so only sees them when she happens to see them), but the juncos arrive in the fall in these great roving gangs that occasionally resemble Biblical plagues. I've seen them here and there this fall, but now that there's snow on the ground they are EVERYWHERE. I wonder if maybe the birds seek the roadside because the pavement is clear so they have better access to the ground, where their food might be? I dunno. All I know is, they're freakin' everywhere, and some ignorant person I was with a short while ago looked out the window at those slate-gray backs flitting about and said something stupid like, "Look at the bluebirds!" To which Mojo the Snotty Birder tried not to OBVIOUSLY roll my eyes as I noted they were JUNCOS, not bluebirds.

(Don't you wish YOU could have the privilege of interacting in Real Life with Mojo? Well, tough. No matter how much you DREAM of that moment, oh Worshipper of Mojo, it's probably NOT going to happen, so you must steel yourself for that cruel, cruel Mojoless reality. Mojo is a crabby sort who REALLY just wants to be left alone. Or at least that is the image she wishes to project in cyberspace, so people she barely knows won't start asking her if they can borrow her truck. And no, you can't borrow my truck.)

The second little feathered friend on Mojo's radar lately has been mourning doves. Mourning, as in their sad cries NOT the time of day, which in early morning sound something like what people think owls should sound like--an anguished keen, followed by a mournful "hoo, hoo, hoo". (We've been watching the Ken Burns series on National Parks, and whoever did the sound design keeps throwing mourning doves in practically every shot requiring Silent Majesty. We're only halfway through the series, and it's getting kinda tedious. But I digress.) Mourning doves usually aren't around in any great numbers this time of year, but I noticed while driving around in the new snow that they were being scared up by the car almost as much as the juncos. Don't know why, except maybe the observation that, while we have indeed have had killing frosts this season, we have YET to have any giant turn-the-ground-into-IRON sort of frosts yet. One of the reasons why last week's snow got so melty so quickly was because the ground underneath wasn't frozen solid as it usually is. I was snowblowing over lawn for some of it (our turnaround spot in the driveway is not paved nor graveled) and not only was I revealing bright green lawn underneath, but I was actually smearing grass stains on the snow. Well, the snowblower was.

So flocks of juncos, which is expected this time of year, and flocks of mourning doves, who are NOT expected. Weird. What does this mean? I don't know. But twenty years from now, or two hundred, someone might stumble across this post and say "Ah-HAH! Here's the evidence RIGHT HERE!" And Mojo will be exalted once again. And then boy, won't YOU feel foolish for ever doubting her obvious geen-yus.

Mojo