Perched high on a snow-covered branch was one of the red-tailed hawks that call New York City home.

The ground lay beneath a blanket of snow, and the sticky, straight trunks of the trees seemed to merge overhead into a solid blanket of needles and snow-covered branches.

And if that wasn't enough, upstairs in my walkup building, above the snow-covered branches and twinkling lights on fire escapes, my neighbors, George and Shawn, were having a lavish bash for friends who had nowhere else to go.

He caught a glimpse of a black squirrel moving through the snow-covered branches of an oak, and paused to study the silvery web of an empress spider.

Lord & Taylor's window dressers have created a tree resplendent with the celestial bodies of "Goodnight Moon," while the woodland creatures and snow-covered branches from "The Wind in the Willows" are the work of Philip Baloun Designs.

It was just after midnight that Warrl stumbled over a snow-covered branch, and admitted, :I'm done in, mindmate.

The snow-covered branches of trees drooped under their heavy cloaks, and where once there'd been the front lawn, now there seemed to be a bright field of diamonds, glittering in the sunlight.

Granny pushed her way between the snow-covered branches.

That's what Dwight Gooden's arm had been, drooping by his side like a snow-covered branch, overburdened from his first season since 1994.