This sunny morning around 11am, I finally saw a Monarch butterfly -- first of this season -- most likely migrating South.  It wandered North through the back-yard then fed for a while on the last blooms of the yellow and the pink Buddleia bushes in the Play area.  Afterwards it hung in the warm sunshine from the needles of one of the weary Hemlock trees which are rapidly thinning and dying off from a tenacious Wooly Adelgid infestation.  After pumping its wings, then hanging still for a minute, the Monarch flew South down the back-yard until it disappeared into the woods, still heading South.
     Five of the local turkey hens were wandering in and out of the yard today, clucking and pecking around.

      Yesterday morning I watched a Pileated Woodpecker working its way North through a tract of woods behind our property.  It would fly to the bottom of a tree, examine it spiraling up to the top, stopping sporadically to peck briefly, then, fly off to the base of another tree to repeat his foraging -- calling out all the while.
      Later, around 12 noon, my mother and I were walking about the backyard checking for crocuses, daffodils and tulips which are just emerging, when a crow-sized Coopers Hawk (I don't know if it was male or female) swooped around from the front of the house, banked hard when it saw us, then flew up into a row of Hemlock trees that line the North of the property.  Since the Hemlocks' needles are sparce due to Woolly-Adelgid-damage, I could see it sitting in there eyeing us intently.  We believe it was originally headed toward the black-oil bird feeder near our kitchen window, but we blocked its mid-day snack. My mom, who is hard of sight, couldn't see the hawk on its perch, but, after a minute, the hawk gave up, and my mom did see the movement of it flying down and away towards the West into that tract of woods behind our house.

      Went for a 20 minute walk this morning around 336 am with hopes of some critter activity. Under an overcast sky with the almost full moon glowing through the clouds in the Western sky, the windchill was 23 degrees F, but it felt colder. Way in the distance, twice trains sounded their whistles and twice I heard loud vehicles -- a car with muffler issues, and a noisy tractor-trailer rumbling up Route 9, but otherwise the silence was absolute.  Three times I heard a faint brief sound, but when I stopped to listen, it was gone.  Maybe just a dog.  Possibly an owl.  
      When I was almost back to the house and feeling disappointed at the critter-free walk, I heard the distinctive sound of geese calling overhead as they were apparently flying North -- a sign of Spring, but it sure felt like Winter this morning.