Rainy Day Visitors

While this weekend sports sunny blue skies and 70+F temps, the past week was a little unsettled with off & on showers and very gray skies, but that did not hinder many little visitors to my front yard bird feeders and eating every last seed!  Even a pair of Eurasian Collared Doves are hanging out each day...

Along with many American Goldfinches....

Almost standing on his head to get at that perfect seed!

This little Goldfinch is so obsessed with getting the seed he wanted he did not notice a House Finch landing nearby.  

If he does not watch out, he may get stuck!  He has his head stuck underneath the shield all the way to his wing bars!

Oh, yes, other visitors I saw that day were several Black-capped Chickadees, a Spotted Towhee, a female Red-Shafted Northern Flicker, a pair of Downy Woodpeckers, a couple of Western Scrub Jays, and a half of dozen Black-billed Magpies!

Every bird I saw this day in My Mountain Green are year round birds for my yard.  Last week while I was playing the in the Las Vegas Desert, the Dark Eyed Juncos decided to migrate out.  Now I am waiting for migrating birds and my usual Summer birds to show up.


Time to go outside and enjoy My Mountain Green! 

The Warm Before The Storm

Winter, so far, as been unusual with the lack of snow and warmer than normal temperatures.  You can see from the pictures below, taken on Wednesday, January 18, 2012,  how little snow we have on the ground.  

Looking up driveway into lot with ridge line at top.

Looking out of attached garage.

When a series of storms were forecasted to come in over a 4 day stretch, the question was how much snow would really fall?  What I did not expect was how much rain really fell!  Even at my 5200' elevation, very little snow, but much needed rain.  SnowBasin, Powder Mountain and Wolf Creek Ski Resorts were getting pounded with heavy wet snow. 

On Friday morning, activity in my front trees caught my attention....a flock of 15 Cedar Waxwings and 8 American Robins were gobbling up the remaining berries from the Choke Cherry and Hawthorne trees.  I tried to take a picture, but my camera does not have the zoom capability to see the birds up close. As you look through the trees into the background of the photo, there is more snow in higher elevations, but very little or no snow on the lower ridge line.


Skies were gray and overcast most of Friday with rain returning in the evening continuing all night into Saturday afternoon when the final storm front began to push through the region turning the rain to a mix of snow & rain, then all snow.  


Around 9PM, the transformation from rain to snow began to get absolutely gorgeous!  I could not resist taking a few pictures of the snow, at night, with a flash no less!  I had to laugh at myself for being just like some tourists I have seen taking a picture of the ocean at night with a flash camera.

What an enchanting evening of snow in My Mountain Green!