Hope, muted

Winter just got a little sand-colored, orange-legged, breast-banded stake driven through its icy heart.*

I made my March pilgrimage this weekend to greet the newly-arrived Piping Plover at Sandy Hook, where it felt very gray and wet and winter-like, but hopeful, still. Woodcock are next, if it'll ever stop raining and blowing!

*C. Vogel, quoted without permission from Jersey Birds, on his find of a Piping Plover at Cape May yesterday.