Mostly clear and cold. Official temperatures dropped as low as 19F overnight, and reached 22F today. Tonight’s low is supposed to be a bit colder, but it starts warming on Wednesday.
I don’t know that it was windier today than it has been. However, a shift in winds made it more noticeable on Crescent Bay.
I drove out to Silver Bay and there was a bit of wind blowing out there. However, it did not appear very strong.
Unfortunately for my sunset and moonset chasing ambitions, it remained cloudy not far offshore. In particular, clouds were over the horizon to the southwest.
After recording a conversation for an upcoming show, I did spend some time this afternoon checking a couple of bird spots.
The crane was up by the brush patch at Moller Park. The sun hadn’t quite dropped behind the clouds, and I caught some nice light on the crane. It still wasn’t bright light, and I didn’t do as good a job of getting pictures as I might have liked.
When checked Picnic Rock with my camera, I could see one person on the snow below. They appeared to be starting down.
I thought I might have seen a Thayer’s Gull in the channel (I didn’t see one yesterday for the bird count). Reviewing my photos, I think it’s probably a Cook Inlet Gull.
When I checked near Sealing Cove I was impressed with the amount of ice.
A junco with a broken leg came to my planters where I’ve been putting seed out. Although it’s holding the broken leg differently, I suspect it’s the same bird that I first saw in October.
Last year I started compiling a history of my Christmas Bird Count outings. I had forgotten about that until I had the same idea today. With a brief search I was able to pull up the draft I had worked on. I don’t think I remembered my CyberTracker data last year. With it I was able to fill in some gaps, and I’ve now published a basic list.
I’m a little surprised at how completely I’ve forgotten some of the outings. For example, on the 2017 bird count I went out on a boat. I don’t remember for sure who I went with, but we went out towards Vitskari then turned north. We looped around Gagarin and came back to town via the fairly direct way. This means I have done the northern water area before yesterday (though not nearly as thoroughly).
I think part of the issue is I have few photos from some of those days, and none that do much to jog my memory. On days that I also didn’t write any photojournal entries, even if I have the memory in there somewhere, I haven’t found a key to access it.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
