The weather icons on my iPhone showed rain starting at 8 a.m. I figured that would give me about an hour of dry weather to look for some early spring migrating birds.

No such luck. The rain started even before sunrise so my hour of dry weather wasn’t going to happen. Instead of rolling over and going back to sleep (a very tempting option) or mindlessly scrolling through social media, I decided to head out into the rain anyway. OK, I did take a few minutes to do Wordle quickly before heading out.

The walk started in a light rain, and a lot of birds were out singing. Immediately, I heard robins, cardinals, blue jays, song sparrows and a field sparrow in the distance. Field sparrows have a very distinctive song that sounds like a ping-pong ball bouncing on a table with the time between bounces getting progressively shorter, just like a real ball would do.

As soon as I committed to a trail leading me farther into the woods, the rain picked up. It never turned into a downpour, but it was a good, steady rain. Thankfully, the temperature was a very manageable 55 degrees, so I just got wet instead of wet and cold. I like birdwatching in all types of weather, but a cold rain is probably the worst. Heavy wind is not much fun either, but I would take it over a cold rain.