Pruning roses on a sunny day, too warm for a sweatshirt.  There's a constant racket  from thousands of cheeping starlings,  communicating among themselves whether to continue to blanket nearby trees, take off in swirling flocks, or settle in the vineyards to graze.  I prefer the surprising thunder of their myriad wings in close formation because of the entrancing, ever-changing vortex patterns these tiny birds create when they fly -- better than any screen-saver.

What's odd is that the starlings arrived late this year, about a month after even a rather late harvest had ended, and they're still here to welcome the new year.  As their purple-tinted poop attests, they love to dine on the unpicked second crop (secondary clusters high up on the canes that aren't ripe enough at harvest to make them worth picking).  Tennis players learn to duck and cover when a flock of starlings zooms by overhead.  

The other odd thing is that the mustard has been in bloom for more than a month already; it doesn't normally show up until February.  A good thing the "winter" in Napa Valley, November through April, has been officially dubbed Cabernet season.  Mustard just isn't reliable anymore!