I love birding because seeing any bird, exotic interloper or every day neighbor, makes me smile. So does hearing them.

I'm not the best when it comes to identifying birds by their songs or calls. But one I do know is the Carolina Wren.

Part of that familiarity is because the species has been a regular visitor to our backyard shrubs since we moved to our Austin home.

And this afternoon, one of those wrens was in full, fine voice.

The exuberant little singer even popped out of the foliage just long enough to give the hubby and me a visual confirmation of our audio identification.

You can see what we glimpsed in this video. Even though it's at a feeder and not in natural habitat, I really like it because it's a good closeup of the Carolina Wren alongside one of my other favorite species, the junco (aka the snowbird). There are more wren videos here.

As for the free concert the hubby and I have enjoyed today, proving yet again that Austin is indeed the Live Music Capital of the World, you can get a small sample via this Cornell Lab of Ornithology snippet. Whatbird.com also has a clip on its Carolina Wren page.

OK, so this has nothing to do with taxes or personal finance. But the wren's serenade made me happy. And that means I've enjoyed doing my taxable income paying job a little more today!