Winter warblers are part of my garden’s life. Several come each day, sometimes for water, mostly for food. On our snowy day, two weeks in the past, the two most loyal of the seasonal visitors braved the snowflakes and ate their fill.

This female Yellow-rumped Warbler, Setophaga coronata, typically gleans from the ground or forages through the gardens, scouring flagstone pathways for seed and such. On that snowy day, I caught her at the black-oiled sunflower feeder, a food dispensary she rarely visits. She also avoids showing off her yellow rump, but it was on full display that day.

I catch glimpses of her butter butt, typically as she flits away in flight because she’s spooked by my presence, or when she’s in partnership with the White-winged Doves and their noisy fluttering to the trees.

That snow day presented a bit of yellow cheer in the form of a warbler’s rump.

My other consistent warbler guest is a female Orange-crowned Warbler, Leiothlypis celata. Like the Yellow-rumped, she’s here for winter, enjoying a ready supply of available food in a relatively safe environment. On that snow day, I spied her throughout the garden: on the ground, in the tree, at the suet and the peanuts.

At one point, she landed on what remains of an old rose bush, searching for who-knows-what from slender, thorned stems, sometimes hanging upside-down as she nibbled and noshed. Then she sat, still and quiet, looking left, facing north.

Indoor commitments prevented my enjoying and exploring the rare snowfall as much as I might have liked, but the birds in my neighborhood were active in the snow, more than usual it seemed. I watched them continue their lives, accepting conditions, unrelenting in activities, focusing on their survival work.