Mostly cloudy with occasional snow showers.
I dropped my car off at the mechanic’s at 8am this morning.
Snow had fallen overnight. Roads were slippery, but I didn’t have any trouble making it.
Since skies were reasonably clear and no rain or snow was falling, I decided to walk back instead of getting a ride.
Through clouds I caught glimpses of the full moon dropping lower in the northwest.
I took a side trip through the park. I saw Mallards and a Gadwall, but not the Wood Ducks.
The tide was well on its way up. I didn’t notice any shorebirds. Enough of the flats remained exposed that many crows were out foraging there while they could.
The sun seemed slow to rise. Official sunrise isn’t until after 8am. It takes even longer for it to rise high enough to clear the mountains in the southeast.
I did enjoy the light as the sun started hitting some of he snow-covered mountains.
I thought about making a loop through downtown. Heavy clouds bearing showers that appeared to be approaching made me change my mind. As it turned out, those didn’t end up coming over downtown area or my neighborhood.
I got a short look at a lone Bohemian Waxwings eating mountain ash berries on Etolin Street. It flew off before I could get a picture.
I spent 15 minutes or more looking for a bird making a call that I didn’t recognize. Several robins were feeding in mountain ash trees along Biorka Street (where I had gone to look for the waxwing).
I heard a cheap that remind me more of a White-crowned or White-throated Sparrow, but all I could find in the tree was robins.
As the birds moved around the neighborhood, I was able to follow this call. I eventually was able to confirm that it was a robin. Hearing and seeing the robin as it made the call made me think of it sounding like a robin with a dainty, snort sneeze. In hindsight I should have tried recording the call earlier, but I was more focused on trying to figure out which bird was making it. When I pinpointed the bird, it started making other calls.
I was waiting for a call about my car and didn’t end up getting out again. When they did call late in the afternoon, I learned they weren’t able to get it finished today. I’ll need to go get it tomorrow.
This some heavy snow showers moved through the central part of town. I think 3 inches or so fell at my house. When we were leaving the Beak, the snow had shifted to more rain. It remained snow at my house, however. I later heard from Kitty that it hadn’t snowed at all this evening on Galankin Island. Instead it sounded like rain. I guess conditions were just on the margins for snow at sea level.
I made progress getting initial tags on all my bird photos. I’m not sure it’s really worth the effort of doing it this way. However, I only have a couple of months’ worth of photos to go through. I’ve got over 8000 photos of birds this year. I’ve seen from this quicker review that I have lots of editing I can do. I suspect eventually I’ll have much less than half that total.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
