If it hadn’t been for the big storm, I would never have encountered this little guy! Indeed, I had no prior knowledge that the wonderful world of sparrows even included one called “fox” with a solid gray cap and bright russet feathers.

Fox sparrows migrate from their nesting sites in Alaska to as far southeast as Florida to spend the winter. We do not usually see much of them in northeast Louisiana. They fly over us while we are sleeping.

But the snow and ice of February 2021 brought them down into our yards. Lots of them and many other birds, some I see rarely and some often, spent a couple of weeks in my yard. I went through a lot of bird seed and–having no electricity–spent a lot of time watching, learning and delighting in their presence.

The storm was a disaster by some standards. Indeed, we were declared a disaster area and thereby made eligible for assistance restoring power, and so forth.

But the storm also brought together travelers from different worlds to expand our knowledge of the universe and its interconnectedness.