Beautiful kingfisher.  I do not have the skill to capture the ones I see on film, but thankfully Sensitive Light does (click for orginal, larger image.) This morning I was greeted by two of these, one noisy magpie, and hundreds of waxwings.  A lightness from yesterday, when this suited my mood:

Thoreau’s Journal: 13-Nov-1851
   

A
cold and dark afternoon, the sun being behind clouds in the west. The
landscape is barren of objects, the trees being leafless, and so little
light in the sky for variety. Such a day as will almost oblige a man to
eat his own heart. A day in which you must hold on to life by your
teeth. You can hardly ruck up any skin on Nature’s bones. The sap is
down; she won’t peel. Now is the time to cut timber for yokes and
ox-bows, leaving the tough bark on,—yokes for your own neck. Finding
yourself yoked to Matter and to Time. Not a mosquito left. Not an
insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters. Friends long since
gone there, and you left to walk on frozen ground, with your hands in
your pockets. Ah, but is not this a time for deep inward fires?

Oh, that frozen ground, those inward fires . . .