Thoughts after a Winter Walk

• I appreciate texture in the winter landscape so much more because the usual visual interest is blanketed in snow. The coarseness of cottonwood bark or the silhouette of a maple or a cluster of cattails is so much more striking in conjunction with a uniform white background.
• The forest may seem dormant, but the crisscrossing tracks of animal prints give proof that it is certainly not dead.
• I love coming across a Mugo pine or other dense evergreen shrub filled with dozens of tiny snowbirds making a cacophony of simultaneous noise. It makes me smile to think what they could be discussing in such earnest.
• Birdwatching, in general, is so much more rewarding in the winter with all the naked trees. I spotted two northern flickers and two woodpeckers of some kind, as well as sparrows, finches, and towhees.
  
• The look of snow laying on evergreen trees is so romantic. The powdered sugar icing look on a Colorado blue spruce or Scotch pine is just lovely.
  
• Snow makes for great creative doings, like making snow angels and snow forts. In the nearby park someone had created a miniature snowman family: daddy, mommy, and baby on a picnic table.
  
• As long as it is not windy, I love the freshness of winter air. I also love all the reflected light from the snow.