“spread your tiny wings and fly awayand take the snow back with youwhere it came from on that dayso, little snowbird take me with you when you goto the land of gentle breezes where the peaceful waters flow.”~ anne murray. every autumn, gaggles of geese, flocks of ducks, kettles of hawks and constructions of cranes begin their long, arduous migration from the continent’s northern regions to warmer climes in the south. they fly in formation to more idyllic and much warmer locales such as the bosque del apache in new mexico. similarly, large numbers of pasty-skinned human migrants from canada and the northern tier of the fruited plains leave behind the rigors of snow shoveling, sub-zero temperatures, dark winter nights and bitterly disappointing fall television schedules. they journey by every motorized conveyance known to man to the southern united states and mexico, toting their golf clubs, swimming trunks, spf-400 suntan oil and bags of money. in polite company, we call these heat-seeking seasonal migrants “snowbirds.” many of them, especially the blonde ones of the xx chromosome pairing, seem to favor scottsdale, arizona.