The temperature rose juuust enough to make most of the snow here in the valley melt again.

Which is nice in some ways because just up the road there is plenty of it to play in while giving us a break from shoveling and breaking ice that forms on the doors to the kennels.

I spent the morning watching as the swans flew low overhead, honking at me on their way past while I was tending to everyone, before grabbing the camera to take some shots of the other local birds. I seriously love all of our wild feathered friends!

All of them seemed quite cheery and busy as they did their own rounds out in the yard today.

The magpies were collecting fruit from the crab apple trees…

…which annoyed the collared doves because they like to forage in those trees without having to share. So they hung out down below, hoping the magpies would either hurry up and leave or drop them some crab apples.

The little house sparrows don’t even try to go near those trees if the bigger birds are out. They just wait patiently for me to throw some feed out for the poultry and fill their window feeders…

They stay as far away from the magpies as possible because they can be quite mean!

They are beautiful, though.

I didn’t see the little hawk anywhere out there and they seemed quite relaxed so I’m pretty sure he’s nowhere close, otherwise they’d let me know.

I’m still trying to figure out where the trumpeter swans are going but I do think I’ve narrowed it down by watching their daily routine.

They are most likely going to the farmer’s fields south of us near the foothills during the day just after sunrise and back up to Island Park in the evenings just before sunset. Sometimes they fly so close by my upstairs windows I could almost reach out and grab one and pull it in!

Not that I’d want to do that, of course. 😆

I feel so blessed to be in their flight path and I hope they stay all winter long doing their thing, but when the time comes and they stop their daily fly-bys, I’ll still have my magpies and robins and sparrows and doves and other birds who keep me company. 😊