First Robin!

It was snowing again this morning, so I went down to the marsh (Belle Isle) because I thought it would look really pretty. Big mistake! It was hair-raisingly, ankle-sprainingly treacherous - fresh wet snow on top of cratered ice. And nothing much to shoot. I was feeling kind of bummed, Mr. L has a cold and I'm afraid I'll catch it (selfish, I know) just in time for our trip to Florida (he'll be better by then)... Anyway, just as I'd made my way back to the car park, almost slipping over three times, I saw a flash of orange. Could it be...yes it was! The first robin. Cheered me up no end :) Spring is in the air!

This one let me get quite close. He was delicately eating sumac berries while I was taking pictures. Seeing as I had to shoot him against a white sky (it was actually snowing), I've added a texture to make things more interesting (thanks to skeletalmess on Flickr for the texture).

P.S. Today is February 21. I started Blip on September 21, so that's 5 months :)

P.P.S. This, of course, is an American Robin (Turdus migratorius) and not a European Robin (Erithacus rubecula). They are both members of the thrush family though. The American Robin seems to occupy the ecological niche that belongs to the blackbird in Britain.