Not exactly, unless you mean out cold like a lamb that was just t-boned by the lion who has been hanging around since bringing March in. Spring is seriously struggling for a foothold, even here in Chicago, which has been spared much of the truly serious weather received by other areas.
March showed some promise of going out like a lamb, with some warm and beautiful days. But winter returned on Sunday. It was a very short return, though, with not quite two inches of snow falling between about 2:00AM and 7:00AM. Most of it melted by mid-afternoon. It’s been cold, windy and rainy since then, and the bunnies and robins just don’t look very happy. Or maybe they look unhappy because Rottweilers are chasing them.
I always look forward to seeing the first robins of spring. They have been here for a while now, and there is one rather unusual-looking robin that has been hanging around the neighborhood. He has a lot of white patches all over his body, almost as though someone dabbed him with paint. I’ve never noticed any robins with this type of coloring before.
I did some searching on the ‘net after I took those photos and it seems that the probable explanation is that this bird is a partial albino. According to Journey North’s American Robin pages, this condition could either be genetic or caused by injury or age. Check out their article Photo Study: Who is That Masked Robin? and see if you agree that is the story for my visitor as well.
This concludes NaBloPoMo for March 2009. Give it up for all who participated!