Thursday, February 12, 2009

Birding In January







I started this year off by getting up on January first at 7 am to restart my annual list. With a zeal that exceeds all types of weather and lack of sleep I met with the local birders that keep annual lists for county birds seen in a year,. Yes, there are several people that do this. Its a great past time and you can start afresh each year.


So January 1, 2009 at 8 am with the sky clear the temps in the teens, standing by a lake in the wind I started my new list. We visited several spots in the county and by 11 am we had counted 42 birds.
Not a bad start of the new year, considering I had a total of 37 birds middle of Feb last year. To date I am up to 63.
Some of the high lights have been life birds, Northern Pin-tail, Whitewing, Cross-bills, Tundra Swans, Gadwall, American Wigeon, and Green Winged Teal. All seen seen in the last two weeks.
I believe this has been the coldest January into February in several years and because of this all the lakes, ponds, and Reservoirs have been frozen over accept where the water fowl would keep it open for paddling around and diving for food. This has made for easy identification of birds I would probably have missed