Winter of our Confinement

We have been confined to our home in Salemtowne and thwarted in our desire to travel south to California and possibly Arizona by a number of circumstances since early November. Primarily we have been waiting on Volkswagen to buy back our turbo-diesel Gulf SportWagen, which will probably now be this Tuesday January 10th. But weather has also contributed to our confinement. We do get out an go on a dog/bird walk daily as we catch a window in the weather each day, but we are now in the middle of enduring our second snow storm of the season, which confines us even more just to our house.  In an effort to look at the brighter side of the coin, confinement causes me to concentrate in the birds or our yard. I offer the photos below of the birds we have enjoyed the last two days from our windows. 

Oregon Dark-eyed Junco - this is the most numerous of our backyard birds, any where from 4 to a dozen daily. Notice the snow flakes, even on its head.

White-crowned Sparrow - this is a juvenile whose crown and eye-brows have not changed to the bright white of an adult.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - Kinglets are the tiniest of songbirds.  Males have a orange/red crown on their forehead that they can flare to express there anxiety.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - - we have one Yellow-rumped Warbler that we see at the suet feeder many times a day.  Nice to see it sharing the area with the Junco eating seeds.