Surprise!

As I noted in my last post, that bit of snowfall Sunday was followed by warmer temperatures and some rain. And then on Tuesday the cycle started again, beginning as a mix and overnight into Wednesday it changed to all rain, which melted all the new stuff and made a good start on all the old shovel and plow piles and the deeper in-the-shade patches. The forecast for Wednesday night and Thursday was for the temperature to drop pretty radically and then for a storm to pass mostly south of us and give us a quick dusting to 3 inches before moving off  by mid day Thursday and ushering in frigid temps. Well, they were a little off on that one. Yes, the temps dropped off suddenly overnight, but we didn't get any snow right away. It didn't really start until about 4 am, and when I headed off to work a little before 6 am it had put down a little dusting that wasn't sticking to the streets, and I figured the whole thing was a bust. But it didn't stop snowing; instead it started snowing harder and the temps started dropping some more, and by the time it tapered off around 4 pm we had gotten 8 inches of nice powdery snow. 

Since I was at work I didn't get a chance to do a photo shoot, but Friday morning I didn't have to be to work until 10, so I got some shots to show the result of our little surprise. I filled the feeder station out back and the birds started ganging up almost as soon as I went back inside.

Just to give you an idea of how much snow we got

One of the Dark-eyed Juncos who were feeding on the spillage from the sloppy Sparrows

A Mourning Dove also cleaning up after the Sparrows

House Sparrows at the tower feeder, creating the mess below

Walking to work later I took some shots along the way, but this is the only one that ended up looking interesting.

A retaining wall and a row of Yews made an interesting pattern in the snow

Given the forecast for the next week, this looks to have been the final snowfall of the season, although it's never safe to bet on such things in March. Still, this looks like it might be my "Farewell to Winter" post. Now we wait for the Sprig flowers!

© 2015 by A. Roy Hilbinger