I am watching you.

It was still early in the snowstorm when two cardinals and a handful of white-throated sparrows took up roosting in the forsythia just outside our kitchen window. Usually they position themselves so I cannot get a decent shot of any of them, but on this gray day the male cardinal puffed himself up and said, "I dare you." Thanks to the flu, I couldn't get outside, but I happily settled for a through-the-window shot of the brightest thing in the landscape.

Sights and sounds of spring

From the time I was a little girl, I've loved lying in bed in the morning with the window open, taking in the world through my ears. In the past few days I've been hearing the songs of cardinals and mourning doves along with various other chirping and squawking. And neighbor kids going down the sidewalk on roller skates and tiny bicycles with training wheels.

We've had an unusually warm spring thus far. I hope we have a temperate summer, because I hate closing the windows to run air conditioning. But in the spirit of "watch out what you wish for" I hasten to send a message out into the ether-verse that I also don't want to have to wear my winter jacket to the 4th of July baseball game!

This picture was the first photo I took with my first digital camera in 2003. My film camera had broken, and suddenly a family of cardinals was hanging out in our yard. I've never yet gotten a great cardinal photo, but I'm not giving up!