With the temperature outside barely above freezing, I sat sipping coffee at my kitchen table thinking about what I wanted to share for this week’s Photo Challenge. Just then two Varied Thrush (lxoreus naevius) landed on the deck railing to feed upon the seeds I had strewn there. Of course, the minute I stood to get my camera they were gone, but, with a fresh mug in hand, I waited until this beautiful male perched in the fir right above my deck.

In Dylan Thomas’ Child’s Christmas In Wales, the narrator mentions going out on Christmas day and finding a dead bird, “perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out.” Later, he tells us, “Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bossomed thrush.” This lovely bird, sunning on a branch in the icy air, is a vision of warmth to me.