The Minstrel of the Dawn

After the wild and woolly weather of Thursday, the winds settled down a bit but the temperatures continued to drop. We got a skiff of snow overnight Thursday and the temp was around 15 F (about -9 C) when I went out Friday morning.

I stopped to take a picture of this tree I know and love against the rising sun. As I took a few shots, I heard something. Wait, could that be BIRD song? High up in the very top right branches of the tree at these very, very cold temperatures, a bird was SINGING!!!! A song of hope? A song of coming spring?

Shortly, a squirrel bounded over, climbed the left branches of the tree, and joined the show. Both bird and squirrel are present in this picture, I assure you, though that level of detail is hard to see. The dark spot on one of the higher branches to the top right against that cloud is the bird, and just above the sun spot in the middle of the tree and to the left in that crook of the tree is the squirrel, flipping its tail!

So I dedicate this photo, this morning, this sunrise, this song of hope, to the minstrel of the dawn! And the song to accompany this picture is, quite fittingly, Gordon Lightfoot's Minstrel of the Dawn. :-)

P.S. I've blipped this tree once before, in winter. You can see that shot here.

P.P.S. The companion blip to this one? Bookends to a winter's day: this pale blue and yellow sunrise and a blue sunset, accompanied by another Gordon Lightfoot song . . .