First day of spring: For the birds

What am I doing here? An American enduring his forty-eighth endless winter in the Great White North. Each more torturous than the last. 
For me, today should be called the venal equinox. Spring’s promise of warmth a con. Probably be freezing my ass off  until May. Maybe June.  
There is still a mini-Matterhorn of dirty snow in front of my townhouse in suburban Toronto. Still ice and slush on the trails in the marsh where I walk most days looking for wildlife to photograph. 

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
- Dylan

​Flashback to last weekend. Temperature minus-something Celsius. Serious snow squalls stinging my eyes.
What am I doing here?
Thrilled to spot a pied-billed grebe swimming in the creek that runs through the marsh. 

​Rare bird for me. First photo op.  
Click madly with my Nikon while scolding the grebe for being as nuts as I am.
Why didn’t you spend another month down south? You don’t have  to be here.
Next day the creek was frozen. 
Too many birds seem to be taking global warming literally. So many robins now stay year round. 

​You can’t be the harbinger of spring when you never leave. 
You have wings! Go south! 
Which brings me to the great blue heron pictured at the top of this piece. Shocking to see it here on January 31st.

Could have been fishing in the Everglades instead of walking in the snow off Lake Ontario in the dead of winter.
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