As a periscope lifted to find out if spring is coming, a dry plant emerges from the waves of a snowy sea.

It has been a really mild winter, which prevented me from taking any more pictures of winter wonderland landscapes, due to the lack of those extreme phenomena so exotic and photogenic. During the last weekend, however, a furious blizzard raged for two whole days, with wind gusts up to 90 km/h, mixed to icy snow. A terrible trial for the small birds which are spending winter here around.
The following day I found a redpoll on the feeder, few centimeters from my kitchen window (a traditional place for the Swedish feeders: that way everybody eats in sight of each other, human and birds). Static, with that puffed and ruffled plumage typical of ill birds; a poor thing, which stayed in place, passively perched in a corner, squeezing against the feeder frame, sometime pecking few seeds (not a silly idea to get a shelter on a whole tank full of food...).
I feared the worse, uncertain whether to intervene or to respect the principle of not interfering (a classical dilemma for anyone who vibrates with empathy for animals). Deep in the night, the redpool was still there, and I was giving for granted that I would have picked it up from the snow, the next morning; however, the seeds & rest treatment clearly had a positive outcome: no sign of the bird, the day after.
One of those rare occasions when I am happy NOT to see an animal.