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Bird brains: Just ducky!
Today was the Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count in our county. I joined two others in canvassing an assigned territory to count as many species and individuals as possible between dawn and dusk. We drove about sixty miles, walked another three in fairly heavy snow though not as cold as last year. A rough summation indicates that we spotted 25 species, which is more than last year and given the nature of our territory, not too bad. Our finds included a kestrel, a Cooper's hawk, two redtails, and three robins. (Yes, you can see robins in the midwest in winter if you look hard enough, but this was the first time I've seen them in the snow.)
We saw most of the common backyard birds, some like the junco in very large numbers. There were also plenty of starlings. We do not usually see large numbers of waterfowl, but this year we did. More than 600 geese in total, at a dozen locations and either flying overhead or on the ground. More interesting (we always do see some geese, but not that many) were the mallard ducks. We usually see some ducks in the spring count, but never in the winter. We saw quite possibly more than a thousand mallards, most of them gleaning corn in a single large field that had been harvested just earlier in this week. I've never seen so many ducks on the wing at once.
Other species counted included: red bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, bluejay, cardinal, house sparrow, white throated sparrow, tree sparrow, gold finch, house finch, horned lark, white breasted nuthatch, red breasted nuthatch, mourning dove, rock dove, black capped chickadee, and large numbers of crows. Though I manufactured a clever explanation for a trick by which some cowbirds who chose not to migrate stayed behind and disguised themselves as cows, I was not allowed to count any of the cows as birds. ;p
Weather was a thick overcast with occasional light snow, a temperature in the high 20s to low 30s, little wind, and five inches or so of old snow on the ground. Hurrying through dense woods tracking a mob of crows (at least 25 to 30 of them) that were picking on a predator eventually allowed us to identify the target as a redtail. I also found fox, coyote, deer, and probably raccoon tracks in the snow, as well as one live deer. People occasionally came out of their houses to see what we were doing, but no one objected to us standing on the road peering through binoculars once we explained that we were counting birds. Some told us of specific places to check, and a couple of those were pretty fruitful.
So, I'm very tired of driving (I was the designated driver this year) and tired of slogging through snow. But we had spaghetti and meatballs and greek salad for dinner, so life is good. Now to focus on finishing up the Christmas preparations.
Oh, and we enjoyed the 1925 silent version of Phantom of the Opera yesterday. It was closer, though not entirely true, to the original text of the novel, and of course Lon Chaney was unbeatable as the Phantom. The DVD had an orchestral score, and the black and white film had been tinted by hand in the style typical of the mid-1920s (not "colorized" but the whole screen changed hues depending on mood and setting, ranging from reds to blues, greens, and browns. The color changes coincided with scene changes, and were not at all distracting.
We saw most of the common backyard birds, some like the junco in very large numbers. There were also plenty of starlings. We do not usually see large numbers of waterfowl, but this year we did. More than 600 geese in total, at a dozen locations and either flying overhead or on the ground. More interesting (we always do see some geese, but not that many) were the mallard ducks. We usually see some ducks in the spring count, but never in the winter. We saw quite possibly more than a thousand mallards, most of them gleaning corn in a single large field that had been harvested just earlier in this week. I've never seen so many ducks on the wing at once.
Other species counted included: red bellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, bluejay, cardinal, house sparrow, white throated sparrow, tree sparrow, gold finch, house finch, horned lark, white breasted nuthatch, red breasted nuthatch, mourning dove, rock dove, black capped chickadee, and large numbers of crows. Though I manufactured a clever explanation for a trick by which some cowbirds who chose not to migrate stayed behind and disguised themselves as cows, I was not allowed to count any of the cows as birds. ;p
Weather was a thick overcast with occasional light snow, a temperature in the high 20s to low 30s, little wind, and five inches or so of old snow on the ground. Hurrying through dense woods tracking a mob of crows (at least 25 to 30 of them) that were picking on a predator eventually allowed us to identify the target as a redtail. I also found fox, coyote, deer, and probably raccoon tracks in the snow, as well as one live deer. People occasionally came out of their houses to see what we were doing, but no one objected to us standing on the road peering through binoculars once we explained that we were counting birds. Some told us of specific places to check, and a couple of those were pretty fruitful.
So, I'm very tired of driving (I was the designated driver this year) and tired of slogging through snow. But we had spaghetti and meatballs and greek salad for dinner, so life is good. Now to focus on finishing up the Christmas preparations.
Oh, and we enjoyed the 1925 silent version of Phantom of the Opera yesterday. It was closer, though not entirely true, to the original text of the novel, and of course Lon Chaney was unbeatable as the Phantom. The DVD had an orchestral score, and the black and white film had been tinted by hand in the style typical of the mid-1920s (not "colorized" but the whole screen changed hues depending on mood and setting, ranging from reds to blues, greens, and browns. The color changes coincided with scene changes, and were not at all distracting.
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The only time I saw the amounts of waterfowl you describe was over a preserve next to a highway on the way to Geneva, New York. Magnificent!
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