Aren’t the Birds Supposed to Fly South for the Winter?

Much to my surprise, even in Canadian climates such as ours, there are birds that don’t make the flight to warmer climates. Instead the endure the painful temperatures that even most of us can’t stand.

Today it’s a balmy –15 and is supposed to be dropping further. I don’t know the wind chill but it has to be somewhere in the –20’s. There is continuous blowing snow that has smoothed out the drifts in our yard.

Only moments ago I stepped outside for a minute and noticed a blue jay up in the tree. He was perched neatly on a branch tucked as close the trunk as possible. While I stood there wondering why he was still here, he plumped up his feathers and made himself into this little white ball, with only a bit of his blue and black cap sticking out. He reminded me of Julianne during her first winter.

We had this cute white snowsuit that we received as a gift. On one of the less chilly days I had taken her outside to experience snow for the first time. As she sat in the snow, (she was barely crawling at that point), she looked like a little marshmallow in the snow, only her pudgy little cheeks exposed. It was one of the cutest images I had ever caught of her and in that moment, she just looked warm. Much like this little bird.

I am not a bird person. It’s rare for me to find anything cute or attractive about a bird unless he is some magnificent rainbow of colours. Face it. Canadian birds are just not that interesting. (Sorry to all the bird lovers out there.) But this bird was beautiful. Like so many others, he made the best of a miserable situation. There was no place for him to find real shelter, so he did what he was instinctively designed to do. My instincts on this kind of day are to stay in doors. Under the covers of a nice warm bed or, if little child does not allow me to do just that, huddled beside the fireplace.