Juncos
They operate from elsewhere,
some hall in the mountains–
quick visit, gone.
Specialists on branch ends,
craft union. I like their
clean little coveralls.
-William Stafford
Well, after all my moaning about the weather I had to get out and shoot today, an almost perfect day for December. But it was also a busy day. So, I threw the cameras in the car and took a quick tour around North Mountain Park between errands. I was surprised to see the sun go behind the mountains at 3:30 in the afternoon and even more surprised to see that this seemed to inspire all the birds to settle in for the night. I was gunning for a chickadee but the little rascal kept moving every time I got the camera focused on him. This Junco was more sedate and I really like the color coordinated leaf in the background. I just got a new book of Mary Oliver poems but I said to myself, “Well, I’ll look for Junco poems but I probably won’t find one, so then I can turn to Mary.” But darned if Oregon’s own poet laureate hasn’t written about Juncos. But don’t worry, I’m sure we will hear from Mary again before it is all over.