Blue skies this morning soon gave way to overcast as clouds moved up from the south. Although it was predominately overcast over town, it remained more clear to the northwest with clouds thinning and disappearing.
I only happened to catch the last light on shining on Verstovia, but I saw pictures of the colorful sunset posted by others. It was somewhat of a surprise. There was just a thin space between the cloud deck and the horizon, which the sun shown through only in the last minutes before it set.
I got off to a slow start today, but did get out for a walk over on Japonski Island after lunch, then spent some time off the lower part of lower Gavan Trail through mid afternoon.
While I was at Lazaria Drive, the full complement of sparrow species made a showing, as did a rat. It repeatedly snuck out, quickly grabbed food and hurried back to the cover of the brush pile. No Brambling while I was there, but someone else did report seeing it today.
I did not see the Townsend’s Solitaire in the yard today, nor did I see any reports of others seeing it. I suspect it might still be in the neighborhood, but I don’t know where.
I’ve spent some time the past couple of days working to get the last of my 2020 observations posted to iNaturalist. I think I have less than 50 left to go, all but a couple from the Christmas Eve big-ish day. With what I’ve uploaded so far, I’m up to 196 species, so I should easily break 200 for the day. I don’t think I will make 250 unique taxa (I’m at 214 now) unless someone comes along who can give names to the various lichens I’ve not been able to identify to species.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
