Bird Watching

A few days before spring,

a record-breaking blizzard - several feet predicted; hurricane conditions; the snowfall has begun. People around me are preparing - fueling generators, piling wood, buying groceries, drawing water. I am watching birds. They dive for the feeder's

staggered mouths predictably, one after the other, timing their takeoffs and landings to form a perfect stream. Before today - a month before - robins flocked in the roadside thickets while every week we get more

snow, hail, rain that freezes into hard contours the beak cannot penetrate.... Yet still, today, the chickadees and jays cheerily steer and store amidst the wildly mounting winds.