Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Where Have All the Colors Gone?

It snowed this morning again. Not a lot, only a couple of inches, but as I looked out my window at the white snow, white sky and black branches, I wondered. Why is winter black and white and the rest of the year technicolor? Oh, I know there are "gray days", mostly in the early spring and late fall, but winter black and white is so much starker.

There is a blue spruce in the back yard. In the summer it is a lovely glowing gray-blue. In the winter, it's just gray. The ivy, which is emerald most of the year looks black in the winter. Is it simply the contrast with the white, white snow. or do the colors actually flee the cold?
But then comes a Downy Woodpecker
or a Northern Flicker to the suet feeder, quick bright flashes of red, or the subtle rose of a House Finch's breast at the seed feeder and the world is technicolor again.
The bird pictures are not mine, they are links from Utah Birds.

4 comments:

Kate/High Altitude Gardening said...

Holy crap! I was on Google searching for bird images and the best one I found turned out to be yours!!!! You've hit the big time! I'm looking for a yellow finch image. Do you have one???

Wunx~ said...

Look here: http://www.utahbirds.org/

Monstera Notand. said...

Nice... You live in a lovely place!

Michelle McDaniel Kapitan (Soper) said...

I know this was posted some time ago . . . but it was fun to be poking around the internet attempting to identify a bird and coming across two of my photos in your post, thank your for appreciating them, I am Michelle McDaniel Kapitan (Soper), I took the photo of the Downy Woodpecker and the House Finch both taken in my yard in the mountains of Utah in Midway, I believe in 2006. We have some great photographers and compilation of bird images. Enjoy . . .