I saw a sparrow hopping back and forth in the snow
in a bird feeder cam in Ohio.
I thought to myself, has this bird gone bonkers?
I’d never seen a sparrow hopping back and forth like that.
But as the sparrow kept hopping, I saw he had not gone bonkers;
he was digging a hole in the snow.
With his hopping back and forth, on the forward hop his
tiny toes dug into the snow.
On the backward hop, his toes, like tiny shovels, dug
the snow away.
The reason he was digging the hole was, like men drilling for oil,
he was digging for seeds under the snow.
Seeds that the other birds knocked off the bird feeder days ago
that were now buried in the freshly fallen snow.
After a three inch dig, he found the mother lode – plenty of seeds
he pecked at and ate.
Bob Boyd