On this year’s Christmas Bird Count I had selected 3 or 4 routes covering neighborhoods in the central area of town. I walked for nearly 7 hours and covered 13 miles (though only a little over 12 of that was for counting purposes). Rowan joined me for parts of my day, while Connor had been asked to help out the neighbors with their route.
Probably the most interesting bird I saw was the Swamp Sparrow pictured below. It was lurking in the salmonberry thicket below the Russian Blockhouse. I’m not sure if it’s the same one as I saw at the Path of Hope a while back, but I did not find one at the Path of Hope. I did find a couple of different White-throated Sparrows, which are also relatively rare birds.
Although blurry, I think this photo is sufficient to identify the bird as a Swamp Sparrow with the gray collar and reddish-brown wings.
I was interested to see these ferns in a yard along my route. They appear to me to be Sword fern (Polystichum munitum, though I’m guessing they were planted here.