I haven’t felt inspired to either write or take pictures for a few weeks – everything is still so wintry and cold. But it is beautiful – this week I was up on Western Field finishing up some seeding and I felt like I was inside one of those glass snow balls.

There were clouds with the sun shining through in big patches on the fields, and sparkling snow on the ground and sparkling flurries in the air. This is the best I could do taking a picture of the scene.

So it isn’t all bad – but I’m ready for spring.

One day there was a fox squirrel sitting in our bird feeder. Fox squirrels are less common than Gray Squirrels, and their fur is a beautiful orange-red color, especially the fluffy fur on their stomach.

This photo was taken through a window – I leave our windows a little dirty so the birds can see them better, and this one is especially dirty because it’s so close to the feeder. The birds – especially sparrows and juncos – kick the seeds against the panes with their feet as they’re looking for seeds they like. Sometimes there are so many birds kicking at the same time that it sounds like rain against the windows.

I spent one day this week cleaning out bluebird nest boxes, getting ready for the spring nesting season. In one of them I found a last summer’s Tree Swallow nest. Tree swallows make nests of grass and feathers. Some of the feathers stick out the top and curve over to cover the opening of the nest and the eggs inside it. Here’s a picture of the nest – the feathers cover the top so well that you can’t see inside.

I never realized how beautiful the nests are and how many different kinds of feathers they contain. I took this one apart and found that it was made of a tiny pile of grass stems and 76 feathers. Here are all the feathers.

I tried to identify the feathers – I have a book called Bird Tracks & Sign by Mark Elbroch and Eleanor Marks that has a section on feather identification. 36 of the feathers are from Wood Ducks, there’s one feather that looks like it’s from a Great Egret, and the others I can’t identify at all.

Here’s one of the Wood Duck feathers.

And the one I think is from a Great Egret (in the center of the photo).

And this is the tiny pile of grass stems that were interwoven with the feathers.

It’s illegal to keep nests or feathers so these were thrown outside – but I couldn’t resist photographing them first.