Winter Birds

Downy Woodpecker - thank goodness for my neighbor Donna's mature liquidambar tree.  The migrating birds do find it easily, it's so tall and filled with yummy snack food.  

Best is, one hears a bird first. Then, only then, is it found if its travel plans call for  a pause long enough to get binoculars onto it.

Cedar Waxwing - I saw these in the tree a few years ago, a flock of perhaps 50 or so.  Again this year, two sightings; the high keening sound eerie and strange, as if some electronics equipment had gone awry.  What a handsome bird, with it's crest and eyestripe. Sometimes the pale yellow abdomen is slightly inflated looking, and the sunlight shines off it.   

A few weeks ago I heard a great-horned owl for several evenings, a sound so familiar from childhood, then not heard for so many many years, yet still it was as always was, as is.