Birds in a Sheltering Woodlot

     Today was bitter cold and windy, but sunny.  I thought the best place to see small birds today would be the southern side of a woodland and thickets that blocked the north wind.  The birds would be protected from the cold wind, but in the warming sunlight.  I occasionally visit the southern edge of a small, bottomland woods along a country road near my home in New Holland, Pennsylvania and went there today for a couple of hours to see how small birds were coping with the uncomfortable weather.      
     A small variety of seed-eating birds were the first species I saw while sitting in my car and looking into the woods with my 16 power binoculars.  Those species included about a score of restless white-throated sparrows, two pairs of cardinals, a song sparrow and a few American goldfinches.  The white-throats and the song sparrow were scratching among the dead leaves on the woodland floor for seeds and invertebrates.  And they were poking among the grasses of a tiny clearing on the edge of that opening for the same kinds of food.  A couple white-throats bathed in slow, inch-deep water on the edge of a stream flowing gently through the woods. 
     The striking cardinals rested out of the wind in the thickets of shrubbery and vines, and on a sun-drenched bank on the north side of the stream.  They didn't move around much as if they were satisfied with their little, sunny shelters.
     The pretty goldfinches were picking seeds out of still-standing stalks of weeds and tall grasses in the sheltering, sun-filled thickets.  One of them drank and bathed in a bit of shallow water.
     I saw a few each of woodland birds while I was sitting in my car on the edge of that little woodland.  A few Carolina chickadees ate seeds from a weeds in the sheltering thickets.  A tufted titmouse passed through the woods in front of me, but flew out of sight. 
     Surprisingly, three yellow-shafted flickers, which are a kind of woodpecker, were chipping into dead wood to pull out invertebrates.  Most flickers fly farther south for the winter, so I didn't expect to see that many in one place.  But these three were concentrated on the south side of a woods that blocked much of the uncomfortable wind. 
     I also saw a downy woodpecker and a red-bellied in those sun-filled woods.  These are both permanent resident species that don't migrate, but spend their lives close to where they hatched. 
     A male belted kingfisher flew close to me while checking the stream for minnows, suckers and young sunfish.  Again, this bird was perched out of the wind, for the most part, but in the warming sunlight while watching for a meal.      
     Ways of finding birds to observe are to look for their food and water sources, in places where they are relatively safe, or out of uncomfortable, even dangerous, weather, such as killer winter winds.  Today I thought "where would birds most likely be, considering the strong, cold wind".  I went to such a spot, and there some species were carrying out their daily business of food gathering.