A Few Winter Birds at the Park Preserve

It was downright warm yesterday (nearly 50 degrees) and I just couldn't pass up the chance to walk outside without needing to bundle up and bury my face against the cold. So I visited the Roy H. Park Preserve, which always seems to have something new going on despite being a rather small park. We'd had a couple inches of snow the day before, followed by a layer of rain/sleet, making the snow-covered ground weirdly sleek and shiny:

I had a lot of fun crunching through ice-encrusted snow, and a few cool creatures showed up as well. A male Belted Kingfisher came speeding over the marshy area, calling more loudly and constantly than I think I've ever heard from a kingfisher, and he kept his tail cocked up whenever he landed:
 

This was one punky bird! Say it, loud kingfisher:
 

A Swamp Sparrow did a good job of staying mostly hidden among clumps of dried vegetation:
 

And I was very happy to see a Red-breasted Nuthatch working through the trees at the forest's edge; I love these little guys:
 

Red-breasted indeed!
 

I'm glad I had this snowy walk yesterday while I could, because now after another day of warm temperatures -- and plenty of rain -- the snow is all gone. It looks like the warm-ish weather will stick around for the next week or so, but winter certainly isn't over yet. I'm sure we'll have snow again before too long!