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the lake. It's kind of awesome as I've been going back and forth about whether I really wanted to drive 100 miles one way to the state park that has a bunch of eagles in the winter (but also close enough to Chicago to always be overcrowded). This one is a 15 minute drive and had no cars in the parking lot. So while I didn't see as many as I could by making the drive...it felt more special.

I put two bird feeders (one seed, the other suet) out in our tree last fall, and it's really helped me cope this winter by having something to watch. We get mostly house finches, house sparrows and juncos, but we have also had cardinals, mourning doves, and an entire flock of European starlings. The highlight was the hawk that stopped by last week. The spring will probably bring robins and red-winged black birds since they were all over the neighbourhood last spring. The subdivision pond has a large population of mallard ducks, Canada geese and a blue heron.