First Snow of the Season

We've had our first snow of the season here in Stoughton/Madison, Wisconsin.  It was bound to happen.  Tis that time of year.  According to the news, about 4 inches of snow fell.  Typical December snowfall in this area is 12.6 inches, second only to the month of January during which the average snowfall is 12.9 inches.

One of the things that's different here than what I was accustomed to in Columbus is that once the snow falls, it stays on the ground all winter long-- until the spring thaw.  In Columbus, it usually gets warm enough that the snow melts between snowfalls.  Not always, but usually.  Now that we have snow on the ground here, I expect it will be white outside until next April. 

Yesterday morning, the first thing I saw when I opened the window blind over the kitchen sink was birds eating at/around the bird feeders we have out back.  Scott and I have always had bird feeders in our yard.  The birds need to eat and we enjoy watching.  Kind of a win-win.

Amongst the crowd at the bird feeder were a number of Cardinals.  At first, I saw 6 of them:  3 males and 3 females.  A little later in the morning, I saw 7 males and 3 females.  The bright red male Cardinals looked so pretty against the snowy backdrop.  In the picture below, Mr. Cardinal is at the feeder and Mrs. Cardinal is in the upper right of the photo, sitting on a tree branch. 

In the next picture, there are a total of 7 male Cardinals:  two on the ground under the bird feeder, one behind the bird feeder (can only see his tail) and 4 in the trees to the right of the feeder.  I've never seen that many male Cardinals in one place at the same time.  The pictures don't really do it justice.  It was such a pretty morning with snow on the ground, a light snow still falling, and the bright red birds starring in the wintry show.

In addition to the Cardinals, a bunch of Sparrows were also having breakfast.  It's definitely not unusual to see a bunch of Sparrows in the same place at the same time.  At one point, there were about 30 of them out there-- all eating with my beloved St. Francis statue looking on. 

Our house in Columbus was on a wooded lot.  It was lovely because it was fully wooded in the back- no houses in view behind ours.  Scott and I prefer to live on a lot with mature trees or, preferably, woods.  It proved challenging for us to find a house (we could afford) on a wooded lot here.  What you see is about the best we could do.  It's more of a pseudo-wooded lot.  Immediately behind our house is a thin row of trees.  The bulkier section of the "woods" is on the back right side of our property.  Even though during the winter when the leaves are off the trees we can see the houses behind ours, it's fortunate that both the houses in view are aesthetically pleasing.  Scott and I actually looked last year at the green house you can see in the photo above.  It's brand new and still vacant.  Anyone want to buy it?  I'd sure love to have a familiar neighbor here in this little town of Stoughton, Wisconsin.....