Dick's  Hideaway

The sun will return

Dick MacKenzie

In my mind, today is the day - January 6 - when daylight really starts to get longer. I know, the days start getting longer about December 22.

But, sunrise continues to come later and later from then until now. A morning person notices things like that. True enough, sunsets begin their shift to slightly later each day and the actual daylight time does increase a little bit, so technically daylight has increased by a few minutes starting just before Christmas..

Now, though, we begin the gallop to noticeably longer days for the next few months. Each sunrise will come a minute or two earlier, and every sunset will delay for one or two minutes.

By the end of this month sunrise will come at 7:41 and sunset will be at 5:01 (compared to today when the sun rose at 8:06 and set at 4:21). The shortest day, December 21, had sunrise at 8:04 and sunset at 4:07.

This morning the Redpolls outside my window and I, looking out, celebrated the last of the latest sunrises until about this time next year.

The sky was cloudy and we didn't actually see the sun, and my celebratory cheer scared away the birds, but that's another story. The sun will return, and so will my feathered friends, and the days will continue their endless cycle of gradual lengthening and shortening day after day, year after year, just as they should.