This morning was cold–12 degrees!–when we took the dog for a pre-dawn walk in the Bear Creek Greenbelt.  Canada geese were bunched together in the pond that never freezes.

I took a walk at the lunch hour.  Most of Bear Creek was frozen or icy, and there wasn’t a muskrat or duck to be seen.  At the pond that never freezes, a few dozen mallards had supplanted the Canada geese.

Along the Bear Creek Trail I saw several house finches eating berries:

House finch (female)

House finch (male)

I was thinking that it was an uneventful walk until I crossed the bridge on my way back home, and happened to look back at the beaver dam.  A winter wren!

Winter wren

A tiny bird with a jaunty tail, it flew to the north bank of Bear Creek.  This was the best I could manage:

Winter wren