While some birds fly away from winter, others fly towards it, staying on its crisp borders for as long as they can. These frost wrens are tiny things, barely larger than a chicken’s egg, and fast as lighting. They feed in groups along the snowline, picking at the remnants of grass and any bugs that might hide within.

Some see them as omens of a bad winter and try to shoo them away, but the birds have no influence over the coming season. For many others, they brighten the mood and mark the beginning and end of the creeping snows, and are the first bright song heard in the spring. Their feathers are said to be the softest and warmest in the world.