Saint Louis had its first snow of the season early this morning. The storm began yesterday with rain in the morning and then freezing rain and sleet that continued into evening. Over 300,000 people in the area are without power because of downed lines. The Silver Maple in our next-door neighbor’s yard lost a small branch that came to rest against the fence separating our yards. I’m grateful that the huge menacing branch that overhung our yard was removed a couple of months ago. It surely would not have remained intact.

As I expected, the yard was teeming with bird life this morning. An adult male Red-winged Blackbird and a male Brown-headed Cowbird joined the regulars, and there were three American Goldfinch foraging with the House Finches and sparrows.

It is so tempting to drive over to Horseshoe Lake to look for longspurs and maybe a stray Snow Bunting, but if the roads are bad enough to keep me home from work, they’re bad enough to keep me from birding. Sigh. I can wait until tomorrow.

I’ve noticed that the native sparrows are always the first ones I see in the yard in the morning. They are active at first light, whereas the House Sparrows don’t come in until 20 minutes or so later. Do the House Sparrows take longer to get going in the morning or do they look for food in another yard before coming to mine?

Comment on this post via e-mail to
urbanbirder < at > waxwingwebs.com.