Before the Storm

.

As the latest cold front moved through on Thursday, I braved the cold to do a brief walk along the campus nature trail. 

Once again the trees had lots of Cedar Waxwings; I counted 100. 

The area that used to be a pond is usually busy with warblers these days and Thursday was no exception. Pine Warblers were rummaging through the dead leaves.

There were plenty of Yellow-rumped Warblers, too, and many of these were joining the Pine Warblers on the ground. Everywhere I've been this winter seem to have seen more Yellow-rumped on the ground than in trees.

One of the Yellow-rumped did a little pirouette on a branch in front of me, ending up by showing me his rump.

 

 

Leaving the college at the end of the afternoon, I noticed that the southern retention pond still had dozens of Ring-necked Ducks. As they were near the roadway, I jumped out of the car to try for some photos. Of course, they took off before I even got to the right side of the car. Only one lingered for a moment.

Then it, too, panicked and lifted off. 

 .