Grosbeak

I am no birder, but I love birds. I don't keep one of those journals where you write down where and when you saw a different species. But I've always been amazed by the range of beauty in our airborne friends.

When I travel I am on the lookout for local birds that I won't find in my own backyard. In Florida, I stood amazed at the groups of pelicans that swarmed the dock near St. Petersburgh. For this prairie boy, Pelicans were mostly found in storybooks and Saturday morning cartoons. Up close these birds looked like they were from another planet, something Martin the Martian would cram into a spaceship.

This weekend at a friend's farm, I cleared brush, shovelled snow, and helped move a solar panel. Basically, manly man stuff. One of the highlights was sitting in his cabin drinking great hot coffee, soaking in the warmth of the woodstove and looking outside to see a group of birds that I'd never seen before. And this was my home province. The Pine Grosbeak are a gorgeous, gentle bird, we could almost walk right up to them. Best of all they have that sort of fat happy body that winter birds seem to share (I also love Chickadees). In minus 35 weather, you have to admire their type - and I pat my own round winter belly in solidarity.

I didn't have my camera with me, but the photo above is a good example. Come to think of it, my hair kind of stands up lke that too.