Here in the great northwest, winter has been fully underway for months. Grey rainy day has followed grey rainy day. The deciduous trees have long ago relinquished their leaves and even the evergreens are beginning to show an ashen-hue to their increasingly misnamed foliage. As if coordinated to match the season, the juncos, the kinglets, and the bushtits all reflect the colors of the winter sky. No one has seen a butterfly for months.
Though not quite as serious an issue as in Alaska, where mentally surviving winter is a professional sport, enduring the dark and rainy season here in northwest Oregon is an acquired skill to be sure. Not normally bothered too much by it in late December, by late February I am beginning to employ my “one day at a time” strategy. Just take each day as it comes. Don’t dwell on how far off the spring still is.
Fortunately, just as I was looking out the window at all the juncos this past Wednesday, asking them why one of them couldn’t be a Chaffinch or a Dunnock, a nice rarity to spice up the doldrums, or even simply something other than a junco just to break the monotony, like twin bolts of lightning sent directly from the gods on high as a sign that they have heard my plea, two Evening Grosbeaks, Coccothraustes vespertinus, flew straight in and alighted in the tree directly in the center of my view.
No, they’re not exactly rarities here in Oregon, but neither have they been seen here for months. These grosbeaks are large, raucous, bold, and vividly contrasting in their jet black and electric yellow highlighted plumage; most importantly, they’re not juncos. They are a bird of the sunnier months; a bird carrying with them memories of warmth and light.
To whomever sent them, thank you; their appearance was most appreciated. Now about that Chaffinch…
Peace and good bird watching.
