The Core Team is celebrating Christmas in Potter County, Pennsylvania. They call this God’s Country, but they must be referring to some cruel deity of winter because it is COLD out here. Snowy, too. But some hearty birds thrive here, due in no small part to the kindness of people like my mother-in-law, Ann. Her bounteous feeders sustain colonies of overwintering avians: Blue Jay, Downy Woodpecker, Black-capped Chickadee, Mourning Dove, White-breasted Nuthatch, Dark-eyed Junco, American Tree Sparrow, and flocks of American Goldfinch in their winter drab. The weather calls to mind a little verse by Lois Lay Castiglioni:

Winter’s icy fingers
Reaching through the chinks,
How I wish I’d migrated
With those Bobolinks.