GREENE CO., MO. — We’re preparing for another journey, the old silver car and I. I looked up from wiping down a window when I heard shrill waxwing cries. Flying over the house, they landed in the top of a warbler tree, and the low yellow sun reached through gray scuds to paint them — and the naked branches where they rested — a rich and golden brown.

Waxwings kicked off last Saturday’s adventure as we gathered at Lisa’s house in Springfield. Carolina Wrens sang too, and people said it felt like spring.

We made a favorite wintertime loop north and west, adding species steadily (if slowly) through the day. Bonaparte’s Gulls, Common Loons, and Horned Grebes fed near the dam at Stockton Lake. Ring-necked Ducks floated on a pond in Wah’ Kon-Tah Prairie while White-crowned Sparrows skulked in the brush and a harrier tore into a small mammal.

The Prairie Falcons didn’t show at Taberville, but we did see kestrels and snazzy American Tree Sparrows.

Schell-Osage held Mallards, Green-winged Teal, Gadwall, pintails, wigeons, and shovelers, a pipit, a Greater Yellowlegs, and a Killdeer. Flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese descended over the road, the birds careening wildly on long, slender wings as they approached the water.

Snow Geese streamed in a procession of skeins that stretched farther than sight reaches, leaving the sky by the thousands to pack tightly together on earth and water. Their din was muffled by distance; a small group of pelicans huddled on the bank nearer by.

It was a two-Merlin day and a four-eagle day. Aside from providing the second Merlin, but Prairie State Park was disappointingly still.

And at Shawnee Trail CA, we watched the Short-eared Owls until light was nearly gone. To see the prairie owls’ snappy wingbeats and startling plunges never fails to take my breath and capture my imagination. They were active that night, tumbling through the air in pairs with emphatic yips — but whether in love or contention I couldn’t say.

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