Opinion: Donald Trump Is (Not) For The Birds

In the last few days there has been a seismic change in the way the United States deals with climate change.

It is ignoring it.

Here is the reporting of the New York Times:

President Trump announced [Thursday] afternoon that he was officially erasing the scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life by warming the planet. The move largely cuts off the federal government’s legal authority to address climate change through regulation.

Following the lead of a president who refers to climate change as a “hoax,” the administration is directly challenging the overwhelming scientific consensus. Presidents of both parties have warned of the dangers of climate change for decades.

At issue is a 2009 determination called the endangerment finding, which the government has used to justify regulations on greenhouse gases. Lee Zeldin, who leads the E.P.A., called today’s move “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”

The administration claimed it would save auto manufacturers and other businesses an estimated $1 trillion, although it has declined to explain how it arrived at that figure. The Environmental Defense Fund estimated the rollback could lead to as many as 58,000 premature deaths.

(Alen Hunjet, StockPhotoBoard.com)

What Trump did, exactly, according to the BBC, was revoke the Obama-era "endangerment finding" from 2009 that held that pollution harms public health and the environment. For almost 17 years, the US has used that scientific finding as the legal basis to establish policies to reduce emissions from cars, power plants and other sources of planet-warming gases.

"This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam," Trump said, using a term popular with Republicans for describing Democratic environmental and climate policies.

So 58,000 early human deaths caused by an increasingly warming planet that has already seen hotter summers, more widespread drought and more destructive hurricanes is a "radical rule" and a "green new scam." 

As an American who loves her country, I hate this radical change by a man who has no regard for anything except his own ego and making a few million bucks for his companies while in office. But as a birder, I am extremely saddened and worried about what will happen to the environment, specifically the birds, now that fighting climate change is no longer an American imperative. 

As the oceans warm, the creatures that need to live cold water have been moving north. So have the birds, whales and fish that feed on them. As icebergs melt, the oceans will continue to rise and threaten coastal communities. That includes my hometown of New York City.

Spring will come earlier. According to Roger F. Pasquier, in his book "Birds in Winter" (2019): "While short-distance migrants are leaving their wintering site sooner and returning there later, long-distance migrants, affected by day length, have not shifted their schedule as much. On arrival in spring, however, they find the season more advanced, often to the point where the food they give their young is no longer widely available. Resident birds in the same habitat have begun nesting weeks earlier, remaining in sync with the the emergence of the prey they feed their young. The migrants least able to accelerate their schedule are the species most declining."

This was written seven years ago.

Birds and animals that once lived in southern regions, such as the red-bellied woodpecker and the northern mockingbird, have been moving north for years. 

Says Pasquier: "The most visible impact of climate change in wintering birds has been the shift in their range. Many species of middle latitudes are migrating less far, if at all, and their range in both winter and summer has moved poleward. Ground foragers can now survive the winter in places where snow cover used to make feeding difficult. Waterbirds are not limited by areas that once froze for months of winter..."

President Trump has done many things to harm many people since he was re-elected in 2024, and he is not much better when it comes to Nature. He wants oil drilling in the arctic. He wants oil drilling off America's coasts. He tried to scuttle wind power projects. He ordered the Defense Department to use more coal-based energy. He has ordered the Energy Department to pay coal plants to stay online. He has proposed major changes to the Endangered Species Act to eliminate many protections. Once he was re-elected he again pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accords on climate change. (He did this during his first term, in 2017, but President Biden reinstated the U.S. in 2021.)

His way to "Make America Great Again" seems to be all about making America a sick place where businesses can operate unregulated and with impunity and Nature is a profit center, the rest of the world and all that live in it be damned. 

Even NASA, a part of the U.S. government, recognizes the seriousness of climate change.

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Europe has been taking climate change seriously, because it is the fastest warming area on Earth. But the relationship between Europe and the U.S. has been changing under Trump. Besides pulling the U.S. out of the climate accord he has threatened to take the U.S. out of NATO and has been obsessed with controlling Greenland, a protectorate of NATO member Denmark.

Ironically, climate change is causing Greenland's ice sheet to melt at an accelerated rate, leading to rising sea levels and impacting local ecosystems and communities. The warming temperatures also threaten traditional livelihoods, particularly for the Inuit population, as fish stocks decline.

Trump does not care about any of that. He does not care about ecosystems and communities. He does not care about Inuits or fish. He claims he needs Greenland to protect the U.S. from potential threats from China and Russia. What he really wants, I believe, are the rare earth metals needed for technology, which Greenland has in abundance and the U.S. is no longer getting from China.

In a word, sad.

I Don't Count (Don't Ask Me)

Lately, I have found I can no longer do things I was doing just fine before on my computer. This is not so much because of any infirmity on my part but because these websites have tech people and I am convinced these tech people must change things in order to keep their jobs.

So now instead of signing into one of my emails with a password I have to click more buttons in order to do so rather than send a security text to my phone. The way I used to print was changed after the last alleged upgrade. When I downloaded a document as a pdf I got a pdf.aspx I couldn't open without a "third-party program." I had to look up how to change it back to a pdf so I could print it.

None of this has saved me any time or made my use of the computer any easier. I didn't ask for these changes, they were foisted upon me.

Not using eBird. (RE Berg-Andersson)

In the name of security several sites I've signed into for years recently asked me to create a new password. I get it, people can hack into your computer if they get your password, although some disagree how often these passwords have to be changed. I disagree, too, considering the several data breaches that affected me within the last year that did not involve these websites I visit.

So I am more than a little disappointed that the good people behind the Great Backyard Bird Count, held every year during the Presidents' Day weekend, have made filing my bird lists more high-tech and less user-friendly. The organizations involved include the Cornell Ornithology Lab, which provided me with the Merlin app, Birds Canada and the national Audubon Society.

In the past, I could go to a dedicated site, sign in and then go through the steps to post the number of birds I saw, where, under what conditions, what day and what time. 

That has changed. 

There is still a dedicated site, www.birdcount.org. But now to report you must use either the Merlin app, the eBird Mobile app or send the information to the eBird website. For this I would have to create an account.

I have no interest in creating an eBird account because I don't care to use eBird to list my sightings. Sure, I look at the eBird lists to see what others have found in particular areas including my home county. But when you file to eBird it is expected you will keep a COUNT of what and how many birds you've seen.

Still not using eBird. (RE Berg-Andersson)

When I am out in the field, with binoculars around my neck, a stick in one hand and my phone showing the Merlin recording app in the other, it is hard enough just finding a bird by eye or ear without taking the extra step and counting how many birds I'm seeing.

Say I see a couple of titmice as I walk in one direction and I then see a couple of titmice in a different area on the way back - have I seen the same two or four?

Say I am by a frozen pond where the one bit of open water contains what looks like hundreds of Canada geese (plus others - this actually happened several winters ago). These geese aren't sitting still waiting to be counted. Most people reporting huge numbers are estimating, and while they are counting and estimating they are missing other birds flying or swimming around.

I support what Cornell and the others are doing. The Great Backyard Bird Count helps scientists understand bird populations and their health by collecting data on bird sightings from participants around the world. This information is crucial for monitoring changes in bird species and their habitats, especially in response to environmental changes - like the climate change the Trump administration considers a hoax. (More on that in a separate blog post.)

And I can understand why you have to post with Merlin and eBird. Cornell runs Merlin and eBird. It built the infrastructure. Why create a separate site when you have already spent a lot of money on a technology platform and you can entice more birders into creating more accounts to post their findings?

A cardinal, one of the many nice birds I've seen in the last few days 
without reporting to eBird. (Margo D. Beller)

Why? Because some of us would rather concentrate on birding than keeping count and filing electronic paperwork. 

Obviously, I'm no "citizen scientist." I'm just a birder.

So, for what it is worth, here is what I saw or heard in the area of my backyard between Feb. 12 and today, Feb. 14, 2026, with help from Merlin:

Fish crow, American crows, mourning doves, a ton of juncos, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpecker, a red-bellied woodpecker, jay, too many house finches, two female and one male purple finch, male red-breasted nuthatch, titmice, starlings, grackle, robins, mockingbird, two white-breasted nuthatches, a pair of cardinals. 

Not a bad collection, for winter.

Survival of the Smallest

When I went outside at 8 a.m. today it was 1 degree F, minus 17 windchill. I went outside to hang two bird feeders.

We in my part of the U.S. have been suffering through a long, dangerous cold period. The snow that fell heavily at the end of last month, and which had melted to about six inches thanks to several days of temperatures above freezing, is still blanketing the yard. Deer and other creatures had started crossing the snow in their search for food.

Black-capped chickadee (Margo D. Beller)

Despite my best efforts, a squirrel had managed to leap high enough to grab the end of the long feeder and pull itself up. Judging by the level of seed, it ate, or dropped, quite a lot. I took that feeder inside. By the end of the day I had taken the other two feeders inside because snow was expected and the winds the next day could reach over 40 miles per hour.

And then the temperature really came down.

Today, the wind was "merely" 15 miles per hour. The birds might not come immediately to the seed and suet feeders but I know they will come, because they must. That's why I went out.

There are not many feeders hanging in my neighborhood. Multiple pairs of cardinals have shown up in my yard, either on the seed feeder or waiting their turn in the bushes. If I see a male chase off a female I know they are not a pair. Pairs sit on either side of the feeder. When the female flies off, the male follows.

Unusual birds may come to eat when they can't otherwise find food. Two days ago a distinctive male purple finch came for seed. He was a one-day wonder. I've had red-breasted nuthatches, smaller than the more usual white-breasted nuthatch, coming to the suet for weeks. These unusual birds would only be at my feeders because they can't find food in their more northern winter territories. 

The birds follow each other to food sources. If a large bird like a blue jay or red-bellied woodpecker flies to my feeders, smaller birds are sure to follow - and vice versa. The wintering juncos are among the first to the feeders in the morning, which attracts the attention of other birds.

One of them is the black-capped chickadee, one of my favorite birds. It is a bundle of energy, exploring everywhere in the search for food. Its territorial song, a descending series of notes, sounds like it is saying "Hey, Sweetie!" Its call is its name: dee, dee, dee. It is in my yard all year long, whether I have feeders out or not. 

It is a small bird that grabs a seed and then flies to a bush to pound the hull to get at the sunflower. It quickly yields the feeder when the slightly larger titmouse flies in. I usually see one, sometimes two at a time.

While my husband and I can hunker down under quilts overnight, chickadees and others are trying to find what shelter they can. They use the yew hedge. They use Spruce. They use cavities in trees. They use nest boxes. They may not even be in my yard but they come knowing there is a dedicated food source here.

According to the book I happen to be reading, "Birds in Winter: Surviving the Most Challenging Season" by Roger F. Pasquier, the priority is finding a roosting site offering protection from predators, wind, rain or snow. That site might be with others by night; by day, the bird returns to its territory.

The chickadee needs to eat enough to create fat reserves that, with puffing up its feathers, keep it warm. It eats and it also caches food in various places it can reach when the weather worsens.

Cardinal pair (Margo D. Beller)

After putting out the feeders I came into my warm house and slowly removed my many layers - boots, long hooded down coat, gloves, wool hat, wool balaclava for my neck and face. Weather like this is dangerous, especially to someone considered a "senior." Even after I put the layers away I still felt weighed down and cold, despite the furnace roaring. Winter makes me feel older than my age, and I know I can do nothing about the cold or anything else.

While I can feel sorry for myself the chickadee doesn't have time or inclination to do that. Its only worry is survival. It must eat so it can still be around when the temperature warms, the snow melts and it's time to find a mate and start breeding more chickadees. 

I should start thinking like a chickadee.

Feeding the Birds

A week after the last snowstorm, just as everything had about melted except for the snow mounded by the plow at the curb and the top of the driveway, we were hit with over a foot of snow. We avoided most of the ice. 

The people we pay managed to make the driveway usable for our all-wheel-drive Subaru when I had to go to a longstanding medical appointment the next day. They also cleared our front walk. That left the rear walk to my husband (MH) and me, after which we dug a trench to the feeder poles. (The feeders had been inside during the Sunday storm.)

The curved blade of this shovel is 12 inches long.
(Margo D. Beller)

Remembering how, during another foot+ snowstorm 12 years ago this month, the desperate squirrels had used the ice-covered snow as a platform to jump over the baffle to the feeders, we cleared space around the poles this time and hoped it would be enough.

It wasn't.

Our snowstorm has been followed by a period of intense cold where daytime temperatures have not gotten much above 20 degrees F and the overnight temperatures have been in the single digits, with windchill in negative numbers. In the immediate aftermath of the storm there was little in the way of bird movement. Nor were there deer or other animal tracks. (Except for those digging out their driveways after the town plow cleared the street, you didn't see much in the way of people either.)

The back path we shoveled. (Margo D. Beller)

There was too much snow in my usual areas for me to do any birding, though I noted what birds I heard or saw while running errands or putting the house feeder back outside each morning. (With the bears in their dens, two feeders that deer can't reach to tip out seeds are left outside for now.) 

Two days later I saw the first junco on the flood wall and the first squirrel climbing down a yard tree. Since then three types of woodpecker and, once, a red-breasted nuthatch have come to the suet. A female cardinal sat on one side of the house feeder while her mate sat on the other side. Jays swooped in, as did house finches. Things seemed to be getting back to "normal" again.

The prolonged intense cold has frozen rivers and lakes. Any bit of open water
will draw land and water birds. But the paths are too snowy to
look for these birds. (Margo D. Beller)

Then, four days after the storm, I happened to look out the kitchen window and saw a squirrel on the long, "squirrel-proof" seed feeder. I ran out on my enclosed porch to rap on the window and scare it off. 

This may seem cruel but I am fanatical when it comes to keeping pests like squirrels and deer out of my yard and away from the feeders. The seed is to keep the cardinals, titmice, chickadees and other yard birds alive. 

From 2014. The feeder on the left is the one that had
the squirrel on it this year. This pole was later destroyed by a bear.
The other feeder pictured is currently inside. (Margo D. Beller)

That's why within an hour I was out with my shovel, digging a wider area around the two feeder poles to make it harder for the squirrels to jump. Luckily for me the snow was still soft enough under a thin crust for me to move quickly and with a minimum of strain. Since then I have seen no squirrels on feeders but I have seen at least three UNDER feeders to get the seeds dropped by the sloppy juncos, house finches and occasional house sparrow. So don't worry about the squirrels.

Winter is a harsh season. In this area what birds don't head south for warmer weather have to find food where they can. At Great Swamp recently I was able to see large groups that included seven types of sparrows foraging at the side of the road on what ground had been churned up by the plow. Winter birds have to find seeds and other food in that ground to stay alive. They also fluff their feathers for insulation, shiver to generate heat, shelter in trees or shrubs and, most important, store food for later use.

This is the replacement feeder pole. It may be hard to see the wider
area dug around it, but it has kept the squirrels at bay.
(Margo D. Beller)

So in a small part of the universe - my yard - I am trying to help the birds. Yes, I have a motive - I want to be able to see them, especially when I can't leave the house. Winter is a harsh season for me, too.

However, I know that little by little the snow will eventually melt. I am looking forward to a few days this week when the temperature rises above freezing during the day. I want to go back to my usual birding places, secure in the knowledge I won't slip and fall in snow. At some point the whiteness and ice everywhere will be a distant memory when the trees leaf out, the flowers bloom again, the insects appear and all the birds - migrant and yard - get to eat.

Until then, I feed birds, not squirrels.

Winter Wonderland (2026)

It's winter. It's cold, very cold. And we have snow, a lot of snow.

It's winter. I get it. It's supposed to be very cold and produce a lot of snow.

We have not had a real heavy snowfall in over 10 years, in 2014, when the squirrels learned to jump over baffles and tried to pry apart feeders to get at the seed because thick snow and ice blocked them from getting to the nuts they hid in the lawn.

We have had extreme cold since then, when the "polar vortex" breached its usual boundaries and moved south. (As usual I blame climate change.) But getting two storms of three inches each within three days (with more predicted in the coming weeks) is a throwback to an earlier time when heavy snow in my part of the country was more common.

So I went out to photograph this event today.

The first thing I saw from the back door was the snow, not just on the ground but sticking to the apple and other trees and the shrubs. The snow storm did not end until after dark yesterday and what fell stuck, creating this coating.

Thanks to the snow, the yew hedge was weighed down. I usually knock some snow off the hedge so the branches won't be in the way of the driveway plow but this time I didn't get to it before they came. There are birds that roost in this hedge, different ones depending on the season, which is why I have refused to cut it down. I know the deer will come and eat as much as they can reach until the snow melts and the hedge stands tall again.

I plan to buy or borrow a chainsaw to cut some branches at some point this year. For now, the birds have their shelter and my brush pile, to the right of this picture behind the branches, is inaccessible for pickup this month. I hope to put several months' worth of fallen limbs out at the end of February.

As you can see, my compost pile is also inaccessible. It is also frozen. So that means I will be filling old coffee containers with my compost, putting them on my enclosed porch until the pile defrosts.

These roof icicles are over the back plot. When they start melting in earnest the water will provide moisture for various plants. 

No matter how deep the snow, the birds must be fed. I drag the shovel behind me to smooth out something of a path, then carry out the feeders. I did not have feeders out while it was snowing and so far I've seen few birds coming for food. But I've no doubt they'll be back.

After seeing the snow on the trees and shrubs the next thing I saw were the tracks. These tracks are deer. (I've also seen squirrel, fox, weasel, birds and perhaps raccoon. Here in the expanding suburbs, the wild world isn't that far away.)

Once the snow stopped the deer started looking for food. With the grass covered that meant checking for dropped seeds from the feeders and probing the deer netting for weaknesses that will let them get at the plants. This is why I have burlap covering the fencing on my back plot and have double-netted my two front plots. It is also why I take in the feeders at night. I have seen deer come to the house feeder and tip it to spill out the seed. They also climb on the baffles to get to the feeders on the other feeder pole. (A hoof punched a hole in the old battle, now replaced by something far stronger.)

 

Spruce Bringsgreen always looks so dignified in his white winter coat. But after a few days of sun on him the snow will slide off his down-slopping branches and his natural blueish-green coloring will show.

The dogwood also looks dignified in her snow coat. I have noticed buds forming on her branches, which means flowers in the spring and then fruits later on for the birds. This is the tree on which I hang the house wren nest box. The tree is surviving having about half of it go dead and then be cut off.

One of the things I enjoy about the early mornings, besides the relative (for the suburbs) silence of the area, is watching the morning sun spread light on the trees as it rises. Eventually, it will be up high enough to warm me in my corner chair on the porch. On winter days like this, when it is cold and snowy and taking a bird walk is more difficult, I need the sunlight in my face to raise my mood and help me get through this crazy world of today.

The Wild West Suburbs

It was an eerie sound. My husband heard it through our closed den window. "That's not a dog," he said. I went to the door and opened it in time to hear a small bit. It was a coyote, howling at that night's full moon. 

A coyote? In a western suburb of New York City? We figured it was singing in the vicinity of our town's community garden and woods beyond the backyards of the homes across our street.

"Coyote (Canis latrans)" by Joshua Tree National Park is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

(Well, maybe it's not so unusual considering coyotes have frequently been seen in the heart of New York City's Central Park and a pair have lived there for years.)

I have seen and heard some interesting things in my suburban town over the years, especially during the years when I'd be walking the streets at 5 a.m. to make a very early train. I've seen and heard owls - screech, great horned, barred, perhaps even a barn owl. I've seen foxes sitting in the middle of an intersection as I approached or trotting down the street.

I've seen raccoons the size of small dogs crossing what would otherwise be a busy street, heading from one backyard to another. I've also seen raccoons popping out of the sewer at the end of my property.

I've sidestepped skunks, including two baby skunks I barely saw. I've had to stop as a herd of 12 deer galloped across the road ahead of me.

And there was the bear I saw after it damaged the house feeder - and ripped off the pole arm - on a sunny late afternoon in October when there were plenty of people outside their homes. And there was the bear that damaged another feeder and the one that damaged my pear tree.

But a coyote howling at the moon? This was a first.

Like a lot of animals, coyotes, members of the dog family like your pet Bowser, have always been around in New Jersey and other eastern states, where some called them "brush wolves." Unlike wolves, coyotes don't hunt in packs. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a coyote's diet "consists primarily of mammals, such as deer and rabbits, but may also include frogs, fish, and other prey, as well as fruits, grass, insects, and carrion."

"fox" by digitalprimate is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

"Mammals" such as pet cats and dogs are also eaten, which is why some towns go berserk when a coyote is spotted. Usually they won't attack - the one time I saw one it quickly skittered away. But some will. 

As for "carrion," I suspect overflowing garbage cans would attract a coyote the way they do skunks, raccoons, bears and crows, among others.

According to a group called Project Coyote, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services accounts for over 64,000 of the hundreds of thousands of coyotes killed each year through hunting bounties, poisoning and hunting, among other ways of death. Despite that, coyotes are not an endangered species. They’re classified as least concern with increasing populations.

If you provide coyotes with an increase in suburban garbage and deer, you'll see more coyotes. It's a wonder I've never heard one here in the neighborhood before.

I've seen a lot of changes in my suburb. When we moved in over 30 years ago you could often see rabbits and red squirrels. I once inadvertently uncovered, then quickly re-covered, a nest of baby bunnies under one of my shrubs. Rabbits used to eat my plants and occasionally would get behind the deer netting. Now I see rabbits only in wide-open areas, such as the Central Park of Morris County. I see more foxes there, too, as well as on my street and sometimes crossing my yard.

The red squirrels I would see were on one street where there was a large white pine. Between the larger and more numerous gray squirrels and the homeowner cutting down the pine the red squirrels disappeared. But they can easily be found in dense pine forests.

Another animal seen more often in the NJ suburbs,
including my backyard. (RE Berg-Andersson)

My point is the area has changed. More houses, less open land and trees. No hunting except at specified times and locations. The growth of suburbia has promoted the increase in deer and other animals as well as in the predators that eat them. The growth of suburban man-made garbage promotes an increase in animals, like bear, that have found rifling through a garbage can is an easy meal. So there are more human encounters with wild animals.

As encounters go I'd rather hear a coyote singing to the moon.

Hawk Season

After the most recent snowstorm I was restless. Even though we had been plowed and shoveled I didn't know where I wanted to go to walk, concerned about slipping and falling. It is a terrible thing when you are so concerned about something like that because you will never go anywhere in winter. Still, I strayed no further than the top of my driveway.

As I listened for what birds might be around in the late afternoon a red-tailed (or redtail) hawk flew overhead. I had no sooner noted that when a second one flew over, heading in the same direction as the first one, towards the woods near the brook and my town's community garden. 

Red-tail hawk (Margo D. Beller)

I'd seen a pair of red-tails a few weeks earlier flying in the same direction in the late afternoon. They didn't fight each other so I wondered if this was a pair flying to a nest, or at the very least to a safe roosting spot to spend the night.

Now I'd seen what was likely the same pair heading to whatever tree they had picked to roost and perhaps build a nest.

According to the bird people at Cornell, red-tails build their nests at the top of tall trees to have a better view of the mammalian pickings below. They will also nest on cliffs and, as the late Marie Winn detailed in her classic "Red-tails in Love," on the window ledges of tall buildings. 

Neither of these birds is as light in color as Pale Male, the protagonist of that book. In fact, they looked more in color like Harold and Maud, the red-tailed hawks I was tracking when I worked in Bergen County. N.J., in 2012.

I had been standing in a parking lot near my office when I noticed a red-tail with nesting materials in its talons flying back and forth to a particular tree. The next day I brought my binoculars and my camera to work so I could see more closely. That's when I saw the second red-tail, whose photo is above. I called them Harold and Maud after the movie characters.

Maud on the nest, 2012 (Margo D. Beller)

I wrote about that nest on April 1, which means I watched the nest building during March. According to the site Wild Bird Watching, these monogamous raptors' mating season runs from late winter to early spring. In courtship, the two circle in the air and clasp talons, a thrilling thing to see. Then the nesting begins.

Unfortunately, my time at that job ended in early May so I don't know if any of the eggs Maud was incubating hatched and how many young there were. Cornell says red-tails have only one brood of anywhere from one to five eggs. The parents are ruthless in defending their territories and picking off squirrels and other mammals - their preferred food though they'll also eat birds - to feed their young.

Red-tails are of low conservation concern, which means there are a lot of them and likely to stay that way. 

A red-tail in the area of the community garden as
seen from my home in February 2025.
(Margo D. Beller)

I hope these two red-tails are successful with their nest, wherever it is. Perhaps when the snow finally melts I'll go looking for it. If I'm lucky maybe they'll show me where it is.