Surprised by Winter

First of all, my apologies for the lack of photos for this post. I got back from Benin on Monday and have been adjusting to jet lag and the 70 degree temperature differential. It was 105 F in the shade there most days whereas it has been around 35 F here during the day. I prefer the latter. I'm not the only one going through an adjustment period. On my walk today I saw, of all things, a male kingfisher. I had seen what I assume was the same bird back at the end of October before taking off on my trip, and at the time I wondered what a kingfisher was doing hanging around here so late in the year. Waiting for all of the ponds to freeze over I guess because that's what's in store for our fishing feathered friend. Our pond still has a narrow band of unfrozen water and the river hasn't frozen at all of course. Still, I wonder how our kingfisher can find enough to eat. On the other hand, lots of migratory birds hang around longer than we might expect. Catherine saw a great blue heron a couple of weeks ago and they are also migratory fishing birds. I'm hoping that this kingfisher is just hanging around a few extra weeks and will soon be on his way. The alternative is that he is a youngster who somehow missed his family's migration and now doesn't really know what to do except hang around the steadily freezing pond. We'll just have to trust Nature on this one.