Prisoner of the Great White North

So I got into Seattle last night around nine, found the city paralyzed with snow, and managed with the aid of a disgruntled cab driver, to get to our friend Tina’s. (Actually, the cab driver, who thought I should have gotten a hotel, that Kevin should have come to meet me, that snow was a cruel joke perpetrated by an unkind god, etc, got me as far as a Jack-In-The-Box parking lot. Tina and Kevin came and rescued me from death by ice. This was very kind of them.)

This morning, freezing rain has left a quarter-inch of ice on every surface, and most of our plans for birding and work and so forth have been completely kiboshed, what with the inability to leave the house and all.

But all is not lost! There is a varied thrush on the feeder, visible just outside the window as I write, and a varied thrush is arguably the most spectacular bird you’ve never heard of. There is also a chesnut-backed chickadee, a cavalcade of Oregon juncos, two of the coldest and surliest Anna’s hummingbirds ever (Tina keeps going out to unfreeze the feeder for them) and a spotted towhee so magnificent that he is like the platonic ideal of a spotted towhee.

The thrush, though, is incredible. Dude. What a bird.

Hopefully we will be out of deep-freeze tomorrow and able to go on the hunt for the emperor goose, king eider, and snowy owls that may be available, but for the moment, I am just seriously in awe of that thrush.

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